


One Night in a Diner

by Annabellee86



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Depression, Homelessness, M/M, Skinny Steve, comic book writer steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 23:16:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16185248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annabellee86/pseuds/Annabellee86
Summary: Steve is desperately trying to come up with a new character to base his new comic book series around. He's at a lost until he meets Bucky Barnes a homeless veteran in a diner. Steve is taken by this new





	One Night in a Diner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesolateHappiness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesolateHappiness/gifts).



 

Steve was sitting and sketching in his favorite diner. He loved to draw here, it was more his office than the one he paid rent on. He'd spent months sitting here, waiting for an idea for his next comic book to strike him when he saw this homeless veteran hurry in. Steve had seen him around the neighborhood several times these last few months.

Steve never saw him during the day which was odd for a homeless man trying to make a living panhandling. You couldn’t make much money panhandling at 3:00 in the morning, but he had never seen the man in the light of day or really in the light at all. Tonight Steve was in the diner later than he usually stayed, but he was desperate. His new book was due, at least the concept was due in three days, and he was still trying to decide on the main character.

He didn’t have the main character, which was so far behind the eightball he was in panic mode. Not only should he have a hero but he should at least have an idea about his plot. He had nothing. Luckily his editor loved him, and he was a wildly successful comic book artist so he could miss a deadline and not get his contract pulled, but he didn’t want to be one of those artists. He was better than this kind of behavior, and he didn’t want to start being a primadonna now. He would get his concept turned in on time if it killed him; and with his health issues, burning the midnight oil like this really could kill him.

His main series was called The Avengers, and while he was still writing for the series, he was supposed to be coming out with a new character for a series of its own. That’s how his other books had all worked. Captain America and Ironman had their own stories and then became part of the Avengers series once they were established as heroes. It was a played-out trope, but that’s how the industry worked, and it was a method that had done well for him. Steve did his best to be an artist with integrity and an income, and that could be a hard line to walk.

Steve would like to be done with the series and start working on something new, but he had a contract, and this series was very successful. Steve knew his career wouldn’t last as long as other artists of his caliber. His hands ached when he drew for too long and eventually he would have to stop working altogether or start hiring other artists to do significant portions of his books for him. He didn’t want to pawn his work off on assistants, but with his arthritis, it was just a fact of life for him. He drew on his Qualcomm Tablet at home for most of his work but when he was trying to get in a groove and let the ideas flow really, he liked to sit here in this well-lit quiet diner and put pen to paper. There would be enough time spent hiding in his loft working on the project once his idea started taking shape.

Steve watched the homeless man dash into the diner and rush to the counter to order. He didn’t need a menu so he must eat here a lot, but he ordered and then darted to the corner in the back of the dining room facing the front door but with a clear line of sight to the emergency exit. He was in the one place in the entire seating area where he could make a break for either exit unobstructed if the other door became blocked. Steve had never seen someone so clearly aware of keeping his exits open and apparently unwilling or unable to not be even in a nearly-abandoned diner. The staff all seemed nonplussed by the strange homeless man. They ignored his odd behavior and just let it happen. Not that what he was doing was affecting anyone, but Steve sure thought it was strange and they didn’t, so the man must be a regular here.

Steve wasn’t really aware he was doing it until he was pretty far along in his sketch, but he looked down and saw an almost complete pencil drawing of the homeless man. The homeless man was missing one arm and had long greasy black hair and the most piercing green eyes. The man wore an Army-issued jacket with the sleeve pinned up so it wouldn’t be in the way. He didn’t have a bag with him or an old shopping cart, but the man hadn’t showered in a while--Steve could tell by the greasy hair and the smell of unwashed body and clothes that wafted across the diner. The guy wasn’t so dirty to have gone months without a shower, only a couple of days longer than average. This, too, Steve found odd. He was clearly living on the streets, and if he was this afraid here in the diner Steve couldn’t imagine him going to a shelter, but yet here he was only slightly dirty.

Steve was shocked. He hadn’t felt this much inspiration since he had started writing Captain America. His hand flew over the page as he created a sketch of the broken man before him. Steve was usually more thought and less action in his art. He would typically figure out what he wanted, and create the image in his mind. He was less blind creation and more planning. But here he was blindly drawing the man before him, his fingers flying lightning fast as he sketched the man as the character for his book took shape in his head. The Winter Soldier, as he was thinking of calling him, would have been captured by the Germans in World War II and kept as HYDRA created their own project rebirth.

He would be every bit the Captain's equal in every way, but born out of hate and anger and pain, unlike the Captain who was born of hope and imagination. Steve could see the character he wanted to create as he drew the broken man. He could see the strong and slightly crazy soldier the character would become fighting alongside Ironman and Captain America and the Hulk. But much like the Hulk and Hawkeye, his story wouldn’t be a happy one. Steve would pay tribute to this man. He would find a way to honor this man in the hero he was creating in his mind.

Steve could see the pain in the man as he drew. As Steve looked at the near-perfect image of the man, he didn’t want to rewrite his backstory, he tried to create a happy future for a man who apparently didn’t have a happy past. Steve wanted to tell his story and if not his story exactly Steve wanted a plot with as much truth of coming back from a war in this age as he could.

Steve told a story of war and the horrors of it when he wrote the Captain. But WWII veterans came home from war to parades and people who loved them, unlike Vietnam where people came back to be cursed at and spit on. Still, guys returning today weren’t met with hatred, they weren’t met with love. They were all too often ignored when they weren’t the perfect image of a soldier returning home. Steve read the papers. He knew the stories of people waiting months and years for treatment, and when they finally got the treatment, it was often lacking in some way.

Steve tried not to be super political in his stories, but he was at least to some degree a social commentator when he wrote his books. He wanted to show it wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns, but that there was hope. He wanted to give this man hope. He wanted to give hope to all the people who were coming home from a war in the 21st century.

Steve couldn’t see a positive outlook for the man before him, but in the image, in his head, he could see hope. He could see the man laughing with Tony or more accurately at Tony as they arm wrestled; Tony’s suit to the Soldier's metal arm. He could see the Soldier putting up with Hawkeye sneaking up on him in the vents. Steve could imagine the resigned, bored look on the soldier's face as he watched Clint fall from the ceiling in front of him as he tried to be all sneaky.

Steve could draw this man a happy ending. He could make the story one of hope even if the real inspiration for the story had no hope left. Steve was never one to write people off as lost causes. His poor mother put up with him dragging home hurt animals to be nursed back to health only to be heartbroken when they died. He didn’t give up on anyone.

Sarah Rogers with the patience of a saint would help little Steve care for the animals her nurse’s training told her would surely die. She would watch and help as he took care of them and when they would die she would hold him and comfort him. Telling him, it was all in God’s plan. Steve was always one for lost causes. Steve didn’t want to think this man was a lost cause, but he didn’t want to pin too many hopes on him, either.

Steve watched in fascination as the waitress brought the food to the man in the back of the diner and held it out to him at arm's length, apparently not her first time interacting with him, and knowing he wouldn’t handle her getting too close as she gave him the food. Steve watched as the man held out money for the waitress. She grabbed the money deftly without touching his skin as she took the crumpled twenty.

The man didn’t wait for change, and that seemed unusual for a homeless man, but he darted for the door rushing out of the restaurant and back into the frigid New York night. Most homeless people in the city would have entered, gotten a cup of coffee and tried to stay as long as they could in the warm restaurant.

But this man was so stressed about being in the building, he darted out into the cold to get away from the people. Steve knew lots of places didn’t want a homeless man taking up space and scaring off their customers, but this diner clearly knew the man, and he was a regular customer with money to spend. Steve was almost positive when he saw the man pay with a twenty and didn’t wait for his change that he must be a veteran getting some kind of disability pay. Steve let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding when he realized the man was at least getting that much from his tax dollars. Steve had a soft spot for veterans. His father died in Desert Storm before he was born.

Steve saw the way veterans were treated when his mom had worked at the VA when he was a kid. He remembered months spent in and out of the hospital with his various illnesses as a child and when he would go to the VA with his mother he remembered it was always so much sadder than the hospitals he went to when he was sick. Even when he wasn’t in the Children's ward, the hospitals he went to were so much less depressing than the VA his mom worked in, Steve was secretly happy when his mom went to work for Bellevue Hospital. It was just so much less depressing to walk in the door, and Sarah seemed less sad when she went to work. Steve knew his mom worked for the VA as a way to stay connected with his father, but it was clear when she started at Bellevue how depressed the place had made her.

Steve and the staff were the only people in the building, and it wasn’t like Steve with his 93 lb self-was a threat or the waitress who clearly knew at least how to handle the man would do anything to hurt him. The man still couldn’t bear to be in the building as soon as he exchanged his money with the waitress.

The waitress not only seemed to know how to handle him, but it must be familiar to her. He could see how sad the whole interaction made her but not out of sorts or surprised. Steve wondered why he hadn’t seen the man before as he was apparently a regular. Steve wondered if the man waited for the restaurant to empty before he came to get his food. Steve felt guilty for being there so late he usually was the only one here when he left, and he always left much earlier than now.

Steve pushed the thoughts of the actual man out of his mind as he drew. The image of the real man now sat on the table as he worked on creating the comic book hero for his story. He would figure out how to tie the real man into the hero he was creating later, but for now, he was so caught up in the art and the creation of the hero he couldn’t think about the sad dead look in the man's eyes. He wanted to get his creation out on paper so he could keep it the way it was now in his mind. Steve’s hand started to cramp as he worked, page after page of images coming to life before him. Steve loved when his art flowed like this. He would pay dearly for abusing his hands like this but when inspiration hit him so profoundly he couldn’t bear to stop for fear of losing the ideas whirling in his mind.

The man would be a contemporary of the Captain. He would be another WWII throwback. Steve wanted the Captain and the Winter Soldier to bond over being out of time. Steve didn’t understand why he was so drawn to this man, but he was incredibly invested in him and wanted the Captain to be the same way. It was no secret to anyone who knew Steve that Captain America was him. Steve tried desperately to join the Army like his father after 9/11, but they had denied him because of his health. Steve was glad about it now, but at the time it crushed him when he couldn’t serve his country. Steve knew how stupid an idea it was, but he couldn’t help wanting to be like his father even though he had never known the man. Steve would have surely died, and he was smart enough to know rationally he could never have made it through boot camp let alone a deployment but he was still crushed when recruitment office after recruitment office told him in no uncertain terms to fuck off, he wasn’t cut out for the military in any branch.

To this day Steve still donated money and lots of items to different veterans’ charities whenever they asked him to. He even got to go on a USO tour when he was fresh out of college, and Captain America first became a big hit. Steve loved getting to go on the trips. The whole trip had been a disaster, and he ended up in the hospital due to pneumonia, but when he thought about the happy faces of the troops and all the superhero drawings he’d done for them he couldn’t help but smile. He would still be doing the tours if his mother hadn’t threatened to kill him if he tried again. So Steve gave to charities and made the occasional trip to the local VA hospital to do sketches. It was the only way he could help. He wished it was more, but it was what his broken little body could handle.

The plot, too, and not just the character was starting to flow for Steve. He came up with this cruel chair to wipe the man’s memories and give him nothing but the focus to kill whatever target his handler set him upon. In his story, the guards beat him and torture him. Steve was drawing incredibly dark and horrible images. Steve knew they wouldn’t make the actual book. His books were right on the edge of T, but he wanted to keep it that way. He would use these incredibly dark images to remind him of what the character went through so he could keep the focus on what made the core of the character.

Steve wondered about writing this book for mature audiences, but he wasn’t sure how that would play out with his existing fans. He had incredibly loyal fans and more than a few were teens or even kids. The adults who read his stuff were used to a certain amount of darkness in his books. Steve would love to grow as an artist but he was, at the end of the day, trying to sell his work and pissing off his fan base wouldn’t help him.

Steve drew the man with hope and happiness in his eyes as he walked to the chair and after the chair, there were no emotions in his eyes. They were the dead, lifeless eyes he had just seen in the homeless man who lived here in his neighborhood. Steve wanted to show that a moment could change a person. Sure the torture and abuse could change you, but a single moment could forever kill the person you were and permanently alter a life. When Steve wrote Black Widow, he had done something similar, but in Natasha’s series she had never been happy, and she had died more and more by degrees. While most comic book heroes don’t have a happy backstory this one seemed more unhappy than most. Even Hawkeye; a character he had been both praised and ridiculed for, had a happier story than this man he was thinking of as the Winter Soldier.

Steve sat in the booth, hand cramping and legs aching as he drew. He poured a story out on paper. When the waitress came over to check on Steve an hour or so after the man left, she looked sad and haunted. Steve hadn’t previously noticed the girl had the same hair and eyes as the homeless man. He wondered if the man was her brother coming in and getting food in the one place he knew he could interact with someone who would understand and respect his odd rules.

Steve could see she had cried recently when she walked over to him. As Steve thought about it, he hadn’t seen her since the man had fled. He wondered if she had been in the back crying this whole time. Steve’s heart broke for the girl--she was maybe 19. She was pretty and a pleasant waitress, she could have gotten a day shift if she’d wanted one. Usually, the diner only put the worst waitress or the new ones on overnights. It was a proving ground for them.

“How are you doing?” She asked, faking a smile and trying to be a good waitress.

Steve was in here enough they all knew he could mostly be left alone with a pitcher for his drink. He mostly sat and took up space while he worked. He always left a good tip, it was his way of making sure they didn’t mind him camping out for hours at a time. He tried to be respectful and only come in when they were slow, at least when he was going to take up a table for hours. He was a kind and gentle soul, and they put up with him here. Steve made sure to do whatever was needed to keep their goodwill.

“I’m fine,” Steve said, still preoccupied thinking about the man. She must have finally looked at what he was drawing because she shakily grabbed the picture of the man as he was in the restaurant, scared and barely holding it together.

Her eyes started to mist over as she looked at the image. Steve knew now for sure it had to be her brother. It broke his heart to see the girl so lost, looking at the image of what her brother had become. Beca, Steve knew her name but nothing else about her really. She seemed so adrift and sad as she stared at the image of her brother as he was now. Steve had never seen her look anything but pleasant and happy in the almost year she’d been waiting on him.

Steve watched the look on her face, memorizing it so he could use it later in his book. Beca would be in his book too, he thought. He would draw this scene. He would draw the girl seeing her brother as he is now. He envisioned a flashback of the apparently older brother leaving for war. All smiles and joy as he walked to the plane. The family was trying to be strong and forcing happiness as they watched their son and brother leave for war. Then the next image would be this moment. The sister is seeing what the happy smiling brother had become. The shell of the man who returned not dead but not wholly alive either.

Becca stared for a long time at the image and then what Steve was working on caught her eye. The image of the hero. She knew he drew comic books. She was a nerd, and they bonded over her love of his stories when she first started working at the diner. She carried a copy of his latest book around in her work bag for almost a week trying to get up the courage to ask him to sign it for her. He seemed so excited to have a fan ask for his autograph she wondered why she’d been so nervous, to begin with. They weren’t exactly friends, but she liked him and was always sweet to him. She had a massive crush on the man for the longest time until he brought what was apparently a male date into the diner one night. She hadn’t been stunned, but she was a little sad nonetheless to find out her crush was gay.

She picked up the picture of the Hero. It wasn’t in a story panel like the others. This was clearly the reference like the image of her brother in the diner. She held them side by side and stared at them. She couldn't help but see the sadness in his eyes. The grief wasn’t the same as the sadness in his eyes in the image of Bucky in the diner, but the sadness was still there. She was blown away by the Hero her brother was in the picture. Beca barely remembered him before the war. She was ten when he'd left, and understanding the core of a person isn’t something you can do at that age. All Becca remembered was he loved to pick her up and spin her around and watch cheesy movies with her. He’d been her hero when he left for war; the brother she had now was nothing like what she remembered from her childhood.

She had been waiting for her brother to get better for almost two years. When he was first rescued she was confident one day, he would be the way he was before. After a few months in the hospital she figured out he would never be who he once was, but she still knew he would get better. She knew he would one day be able to hug her or spend the night in the apartment and not panic. Now after almost two years, she resigned herself to the fact the brother she had now was all she would ever have.

He wasn’t getting better. Bucky died all those years ago in Iraq, now all she would ever have is the broken shell of Sergeant Barnes. As she stared at the image of her brother standing tall and proud, a soldier once again, as a hero in a comic book, it really sank in that the boy he’d been was dead. She might get a part of her Bucky back, the boy he was when he left was gone. He might be sweet and funny and capable of touch once more, but the boy who left for war when she was ten was gone and never coming home again. She wondered if her parents knew ten years ago when he boarded the plane the boy he was would never make it home.

They’d been dead three years now, and she couldn’t ask them, but she was sure they knew. They both had brothers who went to Vietnam. They must have known he would never be the same sweet, caring boy he’d been the moment he enlisted.

Bucky hadn’t had it easy. He’d been in a roadside bombing and watched his friends die before his eyes. He’d been captured and was held for almost two years. He never spoke of his time as a POW. He never spoke at all. He’d been found in a house chained to a wall and naked when they found him. She knew what the report said, but he never spoke of it to her or anyone. Hell, he could barely say more than ten words to her now, and he’d been in the VA psych facility for almost a year and out of the hospital almost as long. He still could barely say more than five words at a time to anyone.

His trips to the diner were what now passed for the relationship between them. He never let her touch him after he was out of the hospital. He could barely stand to be touched by the doctors in the hospital. When she’d gone to the hospital after he got back to the US to see him, he was Sedated for almost three weeks before they could get him calm enough not to panic and throw up just to be in the room with people. They told her he’d been tortured. They said he had significant trauma to his anus and rectum, but they never mentioned the word rape. They told her the catalog of his scars and broken bones. They told her in cold, clinical terms the horrors he’d seen. They’d kept him in a mental ward for almost a year before they would let him out. They suggested he stay in the hospital for longer. They hinted he would need to stay there forever. They said he’d suffered a major psychotic break and the best thing she could do for him was to leave him there and hope he eventually got better.

The conversation when he begged her to let him leave was the only real conversation they'd had since he’d been back. She remembered how he told her how being in the hospital was a constant reminder of being held in Iraq and how it was worse in the hospital because they kept telling him they were helping him, but all he felt was scared. He told her he would rather die than stay in the hospital. She had been seventeen then and an emancipated minor after the death of her parents. She was his legal guardian. She could determine if he could leave or not. He wasn’t actively trying to kill himself then so they couldn't keep him against his will or her wishes, but he’d lost his rights to make his own medical decisions over the almost year he was in that place. It was her choice if he would stay or go. She decided if she had any hope of getting her brother back forcing him to stay there wasn’t the way to do it, so she signed for him to be released if he promised not to kill himself. She didn’t know if making him promise not to kill himself was making things better or worse, but she couldn't stand the thought of being truly alone in the world. Not that she wasn’t alone in the world; he wasn’t able to be a brother, and as much as it hurt her when he would tell her he couldn’t come over for dinner or bear to be touched at least she could hope he would get better at least in some way. Over the past few months, she had less and less hope he would ever be anything more than he was now, but she wanted him to be better so she held onto what little confidence she could muster.

She begged him to come home and live with her. He tried to make her happy but he hated being inside at all, and the tiny apartment she lived in made him claustrophobic. He got his disability, and they could’ve gotten a bigger place, but he didn’t want to. He had a key to her home and would come by and shower when he wanted to be clean or when he had an appointment with the VA and needed to front like a somewhat-functioning human. But he never slept there. He rarely came to see her, and when he did, he wouldn’t stay long. She saw him here almost every night. He comes and gets food and then leaves. Never touching her or even saying anything beyond what he wanted to eat. She would sneak him pie sometimes, but that was all she could do for the person she loved most in the world. A slice of free pie and following his wishes about being left alone.

Steve watched her stare at his drawings. He watched the emotions play out on her face. Steve didn’t know what happened between them or to the broken man, but he could see it was destroying her. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the image of the Soldier standing proud, even if it was still haunted, but alive and vital in a way the other man wasn’t in real life and,

Steve thought, never would be again. The other man seemed to be dead except for the rote suck and pull of his own breath refusing to cease.

“Keep it,” Steve said, watching her.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, grabbed the sketch and walked away, apparently not thinking but merely acting.

Steve gathered his things and left money for the check. He was preoccupied with how to do justice to the man. He wanted now more than before to not tell a story of war but to tell his story. He wanted to give the man a happy ending to life. A happy ending he so clearly might not ever have in real life. Maybe if he told this man's story and gave it a happy ending, it would be like giving the real man a happy ending. It was so clear his life was fraught with pain. He wanted to show Beca her brother could be something other than the shell of a person he was now. He wanted to show her how things could be. Steve knew he would dedicate the book to this man.

He’d written a book about himself in the Captain. The small, sickly boy who through science was made strong and powerful in a way Steve, in reality, would never be. He wrote Ironman about his first love and best friend, Tony. A spoiled little rich boy who became a hero. Strong and brave and overcoming the childhood trauma he endured to be better than the father he was still compared with. He wrote Hawkeye for a dear friend with a checkered past who wanted nothing more than ordinary life. He wrote Black Widow about Clint’s girlfriend, a woman he watched change overnight after a drunken frat party had stolen her innocence.

He’d never written a story for a person he didn’t call family, but he would for this man and his sister who seemed so lost. Steve felt guilty for the first time in almost nine months about the way he had killed the young girl’s crush.

He wanted to be kind to her to get her to stop crushing on him and trying to get his attention, but he wasn’t sure how to tell her he was gay, so he just brought that shitty first date in here and shoved her face in who he was. It hadn’t seemed like a bad decision at the time, but now he could see his mistake in being so blunt.

Steve walked all the way home. He usually called an Uber or a cab this late at night, but he thought the walk would clear his head. He was out of sorts, and the fresh air would do him good. He was in a daze as he walked. He thought someone was following him, but he wasn’t sure. He unlocked the door to his building and took the elevator up to his apartment.

The apartment was a loose term, it was technically a studio but not really. Tony had encouraged him to buy a place when he first started making money, and it was a great idea. He lived on the second floor of a building that was retail space on the first floor and a large open loft on the second. He was going to turn them into apartments, but as the money kept coming in, he kept the place for himself. It was far bigger than he needed but he loved it. He had originally kept a

storefront for his studio but now he just worked here. It was huge and had great light for his art. He loved the open floor plan and the huge vaulted ceilings.

Steve had grown up in Brooklyn. His father having died in Desert Storm. His mother was poor, and they had gotten by, but no frills were growing up. He had a job at a young age. His poor mother wouldn't have been nearly so poor if he hadn’t been such a sickly kid. He was better now but still always sick. He had asthma and heart problems and stomach issues and arthritis and a whole host of other problems that just meant every dime she could spare, went to his meds and other necessities.

Steve would have still been living with her if it hadn’t been for Tony pushing him out of her home. Tony had a way of making you see yourself through his eyes. He saw the kid in college for business as the artist he was and encouraged him to try art school and get out of a career track he would hate. Tony had paid for Steve’s first year and a half of art school. They were dating at the time, and it didn’t seem so bad. Steve would have never taken the money directly from Tony, but Tony gave money to the school and told them to call it a scholarship. Steve had lost his mind when he'd found out Tony had been paying.

“What are you complaining about, it’s a scholarship, ” Tony said like it was the most natural thing in the world. Steve resented Tony for his deception. Steve would have never taken the money from Tony for school, and Tony knew it so he'd lied and tricked Steve. Steve was awarded a full ride to NYU, and in Tony’s opinion, he was a good investment. Tony wasn’t wrong, he made far more with his comic books than he ever would have made as a businessman, but the lies and fighting ended his relationship with Tony.

Steve was still angry with Tony for the lies and what he felt was his part in ending their love story, but Steve now saw the love Tony had with Pepper and Bruce and knew things would have ended anyway. It was the unnatural death of their love that killed him.

Steve flopped into bed fully dressed and was asleep in minutes. His dreams were plagued by dead eyes. Steve woke around six and was pulled from the bed by the desire to flesh out his new book. This desperate need to create was something he hadn’t felt since he’d started working on his first book. He loved the manic energy of it, but he knew to get too little sleep and working so hard was going to play hell on his body. He luckily didn't have too much issue with his hands, but Steve knew arthritis would get to the point where working would be hard for him. It was part of the reason he followed what Tony told him to do with his money so carefully. He wasn’t super cheap, but he made sure savings was a huge part of his life because he didn’t think he would be able to keep working until he was as old as most people. His hands just wouldn’t keep up. He tried to be kind to them. He worked a lot digitally because it was easier on his hands, but he loved the feel of a pencil and paper, it was just better for blind creation than the computer. Steve would scan his work and do most of the work digitally, but he would pour his thoughts and ideas out on paper the way he had as a kid.

Steve worked for hours, then he decided he needed a break. He knew he would need to get a release from the man in the diner. He could have just changed his likeness enough and gotten away with it, but he wanted to give this story to the man from the diner. He called his lawyer.  
Steve loved Peggy. She was amazing. He had put her in a couple of his books. She was all class and beauty much like Pepper. Pepper wasn’t as strong and aggressive as Peggy, but he loved them both.

“Hey Peg. I need a character release form, can you make one up for me?” Steve asked. Thinking about Beca, “Sorry Peg I need two.”

“Did inspiration finally hit?” Peggy asked, typing. She had done this for him so many times she had a template for him. He probably could have just gotten one of the previous ones and changed the names, but he would happily pay her to do it for him. He wished he was straight or at least bi enough to build a life with Peggy Carter. She was everything he wanted in a life partner. They had tried for a while when they were both younger and in college. She was terrific in bed. A true Domme who would do anything. She was excellent with a strap-on, and she loved to fuck his ass, but at the end of the day they both knew what Steve was, and the love affair ended.

They remained friends, and she was a great memory. Some loves like Tony, it hurt to remember the actual romance and relationship, but with Peggy, there was no sadness in the ending of things between them. They had been poly, and both had other lovers. Steve had thought between her love of fucking him and the men he dated that he could be happy with a woman, but they both knew it was a lie, and when she met a crazy, goofy Scandinavian man, she went home with him for the summer, and things just fizzled out between them. Thor hadn’t lasted long. She said years later she knew he wasn’t a great fit, but his daddy had a private plane and was willing to take her to Iceland with him for the Summer. Peggy loved to use her body for anything and everything including getting men to do things for her.

She’d done a few porn flicks and worked as a Pro Domme even while maintaining a higher successful law career. She was smart and strong and beautiful and loved to get what she wanted out of men. Steve wondered what she had been getting out of him when they were together. He was afraid to ask. She used men in the same way they used her. She was brilliant and powerful and stunningly beautiful, and they got a tiger in bed and arm candy on the street. She got whatever she managed to get from them. No one seemed to mind her using them. Every relationship she had appeared to end on good terms. Hell, she still fooled around with Thor, but that was work mostly unless either of them was between dynamic relationships. Thor and Peggy even did porn together. He was a colossal pain slut and bottomed for her when she did porn. Steve could surprisingly take quite a bit of pain, but he was tiny, and all skin and bone and she couldn’t play nearly as hard with Steve as she could with Thor. He was all muscle and could really take a hit.

Steve had tried to be a good sub for her. He enjoyed subbing now and again, but he was much more of a D type than an S type. He loved the sensation, but groveling and begging and doing what he was told was never something he was good at. He was mouthy and bratty and likely to just ignore an order. He could play in a scene, but he wasn’t well suited to a full-time D/s dynamic. Peggy loved to be a Domme, and she wasn’t super thrilled with Steve when he would just ignore her commands and work all day or go sit on the couch when he was supposed to be staying off the furniture.

“Who’s the new person?” Peggy asked. “You dating this one again.” Steve had dated most of the people he wrote books about or put in his books. Thor was the exception. Thor was just so pretty and named for a god. How do you ignore that when you are writing a comic book series. Hell, even Thor’s idiot brother Loki made it in his books. Steve couldn’t get over the fact that not only had Thor’s father been named-- get this Odin-- but then he had two sons, one he named Thor the other Loki. It was just too good to leave out of his books.

“No. For your information, I am not dating this one. I don’t even know his name.” Steve felt like an idiot as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

“Then why are you even calling me. You know I need a name for the fucking waiver. And just change the image a little and don’t get a waiver. Why bother for someone you don’t even know?”

Steve knew Peggy had a point. Why did he care so much? He wanted to say it was because he was a good person and it was the right thing to do, or that it was the fact that he liked his diner and he didn’t want to become persona non grata, but that wasn't really the truth. It was more than either of those things, there was something about the man. He didn’t want to admit he had a crush, not to Peggy or how scared he felt about having a crush on such a clearly damaged person, but Peggy wasn’t stupid. She would figure it out soon enough. Steve had a series of bad-for-him boyfriends. Verbally abusive, physically abusive, a couple closeted guys, hell Steve had dated a couple of drug addicts. It seemed reasonable and well adjusted wasn’t Steve’s style. Peggy on her own was part of the pattern. Tony definitely was. Tony was doing pretty well these days, but he’d had a lot of therapy since they broke up and it seemed to be helping.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Steve said, trying to make it sound more real than it felt. He knew Peggy wouldn’t buy it, but true to form she let him get away with pretending. Steve thought she loved him. Steve wondered if that’s what she had been getting out of their relationship. She never said she loved him, but she would let him get away with things she wouldn’t let anyone else in the world get away with even now. She liked to be right and tell people when she saw through their bullshit, but she never did those things with Steve. She only told Steve when she saw through him when it really was in his best interest to know he wasn’t fooling anyone. She told him she knew he was lying about a bruise when one of Steve’s ex’s had hit him, and Steve told every one he walked into a door. Steve hated her at the time but looking back he knew she was right to tell him she knew he was lying.

“Call me back when you have a name! And I am billing you for wasting my time,” she said hanging up.

Steve felt like shit for wasting her time. He wanted to take care of business, but he didn’t want to waste her time. She was a friend, and she would often do things for him without charging him, so he didn’t want to abuse her good will.

Steve sat looking at his phone for way too long before he got up and went to shower. He wanted to go to the diner when Beca got there so he could talk to her. He wanted to ask her about the man from last night and see if she could make an introduction so he could speak to him about signing the release for him or get her to get the man to sign for him. He knew he could just change the face a little and not get the release but doing that just felt wrong. He wanted to do the right thing for the man in the diner. He had his own story, and the idea of someone using that as part of a commercial art project would be more than he could take.

Steve left for the diner around seven and was there about the same time Beca arrived for the overnight shift. Steve made sure to ask to be seated in her section. The diner was busy with the dinner crowd, so he just ate his food and worked on his book. He was really getting a grasp of what he wanted the story to become. He knew how he wanted the story to end. It would end the way most of his first books for new characters did. It would end with Fury asking them to join the Avengers.

Steve was toying with the idea of having Steve be the one to go to the Soldier to ask him to join them. He was also toying with the idea of the Soldier just doing the right thing and joining the fight. The next Avenger book was going to be a big epic battle for New York with Tony having a crisis of faith. Steve was leaning towards the Soldier just jumping into the fray with the other Avengers and never being properly asked to join them. He was leaning towards the Soldier joining the fight because he wanted to have the scene where Steve goes and talks to him and tells him that he is worthy of being a part of them even if he doesn’t feel like he is noble, but Steve was still up in the air. He kind of wanted to have the other Avengers talk about the new superhero on the block and decide he is too brutal to be allowed to join them and shun him for his anger and brokenness until they need him.

 

Steve thought it would give the Avengers a more human and relatable personality. He wanted to give the Captain a less of an impeccable person in the new book series. He was tired of Captain being perfect in every way. If he could show some kind of imperfection, it would be a good point for the Captain to have to overcome later. He felt terrible for making the character based on himself be so over the top perfect but it was his first time writing a book and it just kinda happened, and now he was stuck. He couldn’t really change who the character was now, but the perfect Steve Rogers would want to protect his friends even if it meant shunning someone else. Steve would make his character less perfect in a way that wouldn’t alienate his readers.

Around nine the diner had cleared out, and Beca swung by his table to check on him. “How’s your night, Steve?” she asked.

“It’s going well. How is your night?”

“It’s good.”

“Hey, can I ask you about the man last night?”

“Yeah.” She answered, looking slightly worried. When people met Bucky, they often asked not-so-nice questions, and it was always upsetting to have them insinuate he was broken or damaged beyond repair.

“He’s your brother, right?” Steve asked immediately seeing the fear on her face.

“Yeah. He’s my older brother,” she said, bristling a bit as she talked.

“You know I write comic books,” Steve stated stupidly, knowing she knew but still feeling compelled to tell her.

“Yes.” She said trying not to sound condescending and failing.

“I want to write a book and use your brother as the man character. I want to have him be a soldier who comes home from WWII damaged mentally and physically. I want to have him go through his own project rebirth that was much more about pain and fear than hope and excitement for the future. Do you think you could introduce me to your brother so I can get to know him and do him justice in my book?”

Beca had been excited when he started talking about putting her brother into his book, but as soon as Steve started talking about wanting to meet Bucky, she knew it was a lost cause. She would have to tell someone she not only had a crush on but someone she admired just how messed up her brother was.

“You saw him last night with his own sister, what makes you think you can get to know him?” She didn’t realize how harsh or how poor her opinion of her brother was. She hated the words as soon as she said them but she knew they were correct.

Steve felt stupid now that he thought about it. He could see how the man hadn’t been able to handle touching Beca or handle speaking more than to order his food. What had he been thinking to imagine that man could talk to him and get to know him well enough to be the main character for his book? He would have to just use the man’s image and wing the rest of it.

“What’s his name?” Steve asked before he could think about keeping his big mouth shut.

“Bucky. Well, James Buchanan Barnes but everyone calls him Bucky.”

Steve couldn’t help but smile. Much like Pepper Potts, Bucky Barnes was the perfect Superhero name. “That’s a great superhero name.”

Beca smiled sadly as she looked at Steve. “Yeah, I guess it kind of is.”

“I do need to get a release to use his likeness and yours if you think you could at least get him to sign that for me. He will get some money for letting me use his face. It’s not much, but it’s something.”

“I will ask.”

Steve smiled at her as she got up and walked to the back of the restaurant. Steve watched her walk away and went back to working on his book. He would have to come up with the story without getting info from the man, but he wanted to do justice to the man’s history.

Around Two in the morning Bucky came back in to get his dinner. Steve couldn’t help himself. He very slowly made eye contact with him and waved. The man seemed to notice him but made no attempt to wave back. Steve felt like he had won the lottery. The man hadn’t interacted with him, but he hadn’t seemed upset to be acknowledged.

Steve kept up his system of getting to know the man. Bucky only came in when Steve was the only person in the diner, but he would come in with Steve there, and he seemed less freaked out by Steve’s presence. Steve wondered how hungry he must have been to risk coming in when he was there that first night.

After about a week of just waving, the man waved back. Steve thought it was a twitch at first, but the next night it was the same thing. A week after Bucky started to wave, Steve decided to introduce himself. He waved, and Bucky waved back, and Steve just said his name and waited, trying not to pressure the man into feeling compelled into speaking.

Steve had talked enough to Beca to understand that speech was hard for Bucky. He had been a POW for two years, and they had forced him not to speak in that time, and it was something he was having a hard time getting over. Beca had mentioned they tortured him when he made any sound, but she never said how they abused him. Beca said when he was in the hospital, and they would force therapy on him he would cry and even throw up from the panic when he was forced to speak.

From what Beca said, the time her brother was in the hospital was as traumatic as his time in Iraq. Steve wanted to put something about that in his book, but he didn’t know how to write that without shaming the man he was starting to interact with.

It was in the third week of Steve’s quiet campaign to get the man to talk to him that the man sat down in the back of the restaurant and ate his dinner. For the next week, Bucky ate in the diner with him at successively closer tables until he was at the table right across from Steve’s.

After that first night sitting at the closest table to Steve’s, the man would sit by him and even mumble hello to Steve. The conversations never went past a few exchanges. The man would interact a few times and then seem to be more agitated if Steve tried to continue. The book was coming along nicely when Steve finally decided he had to broach the topic with the man, or he needed to change the character and rework his panels.

Steve spent a week trying to figure out the best way to talk to Bucky about the release. Steve decided he would put the full-color image of the Winter Soldier on the table. Steve would place a copy of the release form and a note from Steve explaining what he wanted and let Bucky handle it in the least talkative way Steve could think of.

Bucky sat down at his usual table, and when he noticed there was a paper on the table, he wondered if the table was occupied until he saw what it was. The paper was one of the images Steve was always working on. Bucky wanted to be angry until he read the note on the form.

Steve wanted to make him the hero in his book. Not the villain, but the hero. He wanted to make Bucky into the good guy. Bucky couldn’t help but be flattered by this. He’d wanted to be a hero when he had joined the Army, but he soon discovered he was to be the villain and then the tragedy.

Steve smiled at him and watched as he signed the paper. He tossed the legal form onto Steve’s table and kept the image of the hero. He wasn’t sure he was supposed to have kept it, but it was the least he was owed for letting the man use his image. So he kept it, sliding it carefully into his bag, in his notebook, so it didn’t get damaged. Bucky knew the picture of him as a superhero would be a comfort when he felt like a broken villain.

Bucky hadn’t understood that he was going to end up killing kids when he joined the Army. Not only had been held captive damaged his psyche but the things he had done in the name of God and country had also left their mark. “I want to read the book,” Bucky mumbled studiously looking away from Steve.

“It’s not been printed yet. You can read it, but it’s only on my computer at my place. You can come over to my place and read it, or I can upload it onto my phone, and you can read it there.”

“I’ll come to your place and read it before it goes to press,” Bucky said not caring that he sounded angry.

Beca had been watching the two men form an uneasy bond over the last month. She knew Steve thought Bucky had been coming in and eating when he wasn’t there before Steve’s interaction with her brother, but he had never sat down to a meal in the diner before he started his odd interaction with Steve.

Beca knew her brother was gay. She had caught him having sex with Joe when they were kids. She didn’t think the Army had changed his sexual orientation, but she was surprised he seemed to be interested in Steve. Bucky had never talked about the rapes with her. To her knowledge, he never spoke to anyone about them. From the reports and medical files, they were brutal and prolonged. He had severe damage that would never heal from what they’d done to him. Beca assumed the assaults had taken away her brother’s sexuality.

Steve scribbled his address on a scrap of paper and tossed it back at Bucky’s table mumbling a quick “ tomorrow” as he went back to work. Steve could tell this had been too much human interaction for Bucky. Steve knew he would need to keep his mouth shut for as long as the man was in the diner and let him calm back down.

The next evening Steve changed his clothes four times and spent half the day cleaning his apartment in preparation for Bucky’s arrival. Steve didn't think the homeless guy would be too judgy about his level of home maintenance, but he was nervous about him coming to his house.

Bucky had been a nervous wreck all day. He wanted to be clean before he went to Steve’s but being in his sister's apartment long enough to shower was pushing it for him on the best of days. With his nerves, it was really more than he should have done but he didn’t want to stink when he was in Steve's home.

Bucky was an hour late. He had been on time when he got to Steve’s building, but he had a massive panic attack and had to go hide in the alley and throw up for 45 minutes before he could get it together enough to try again. This time when Bucky got back to Steve’s building he opened the door and went up to the second floor banging loudly on the door so he couldn’t bolt if he didn't want to look like a freak. Not that Steve didn’t know he was a freak, but he was trying so hard not to look too crazy to the man who was making him into a hero.

Steve opened the door slowly knowing if he yanked it open it would scare the man. Bucky stalked into his apartment and over to the computer, standing safely far enough away from Steve so Steve could get to the computer to open the file without crowding him. He was making it clear Steve needed to get on with why he was here and not drag this out.

Steve could tell this was almost too much for Bucky. He knew seeing the book would be hard for Bucky, but he hadn't thought that just being in his apartment would be this hard for him. Steve hurried as much as he could without frightening Bucky. Steve had the book open, only minimized. Steve pulled it up and then backed away and went to sit on the bed. It was the farthest place to sit away from his computer and still be in the room.

Bucky looked at the first page of the book and read through page four before he panicked. Steve wasn’t spot on about what actually happened to him when he was in captivity, but he was close enough to be triggering. Bucky could feel the stomach acid in the back of his throat before he realized it was happening. He didn't think he had anything left to throw up, but apparently, he did.

“Bathroom,” was all Bucky managed to choke out, stumbling and knocking over the chair in his haste to get up. Bucky knew to be in the bathroom, closed in with no exit, would freak him out, but he knew he couldn't make it outside before he lost his lunch all over the floor of Steve’s home. Bucky couldn’t bear the man who was making him a comic book watching him toss his cookies all over his floor. Steve already thought he was a loser, but vomiting all over the floor was too far.

Steve pointed to a little area with curtain walls and no door. Bucky didn't know if the lack of walls would make things better or worse. He wouldn’t be so trapped, but the way his stomach was reacting he thought it would end up coming out both ends and that meant having to do that where Steve could hear. Bucky tried to shove down the panic, but he knew it was futile to try and get out of the apartment.

Steve didn’t know what had happened, but clearly, Bucky was sick. Steve could hear him puking and moaning. Steve lived alone in a not precisely living space. He somewhat enjoyed the open floor plan but having to puke in the open wasn’t something he enjoyed nor was it something he thought other people would enjoy. Steve walked to the computer and looked at the image that had sent Bucky over the edge. It was him chained down and being electrocuted. Steve had never asked Beca what had happened, but clearly, this was too close to home for the man.

Steve went to the cupboard, grabbed a spare toothbrush, and slid it under the curtain to Bucky. Steve’s bathroom wasn’t really a room it was a toilet and a sink and shower in the middle of his far wall surrounded by currents so it would pass code and he was able to get his certificate of occupancy. It wasn’t a room. What Steve heard a mumbled thanks before more sounds of vomiting. Steve turned on music, paused a moment, turned it louder, then went to sit at the computer, thinking about if he wanted to change the panel or if he should ask Bucky if he wanted the panel changed.

Steve sat lost in thought until he heard other sounds from the bathroom. These were a different kind of sick, and Steve felt sad and lost for what to do for the man. He couldn’t imagine it was easy to shit in front of a perfect stranger especially in a bathroom with no walls or door. Steve did his best to ignore the sounds coming from the bathroom, but it was hard to ignore the poor man getting sick loudly in the same room as him.

“I’m going to run to the diner. I’ll grab you your usual dinner and be back in an hour. My number is on the post-it on the fridge if you need more time. There are baby wipes in the pack on the back of the toilet,” Steve said as an afterthought as he walked out the door.

Steve went to the diner and sat nursing a cup of coffee. 50 minutes later his phone pinged saying a simple “I need more time.” Steve felt awful but sat tight. An hour later he got a text with a simple, “all clear.” Steve placed the order and headed home. Beca looked panicked. Steve figured Bucky had texted her. She hadn’t mentioned anything to Steve, but she was looking distraught and like she wanted to yell at him for upsetting Bucky.

Bucky had been sick for almost the whole hour, but when it stopped, he was so ashamed he wanted to hide from Steve. He wondered if he could go back to ignoring Steve the way he had for months before he started interacting with him. Bucky finally got up the courage to invite him back to his own home. Bucky was thankful Steve had been so kind as to offer him a toothbrush and baby wipes. It seemed like such kindness to Bucky.

In the months at the VA hospital and the months he had tried to live with his sister, he had never gotten the courage to ask for such things. He barely spoke at the VA and asking his sister to spend money on him seemed so unfair with as much as he already cost her. Bucky had his VA disability, but he couldn't have gone into a store to get them himself, and he just couldn’t ask her to get them. He didn't know why it felt so gracious of Steve to offer, but it felt incredibly thoughtful.

Steve opened the door and saw Bucky sitting at the computer looking over the rest of the book. He was almost at the end. Steve wondered why he hadn’t offered Bucky to look at the book alone in the first place. Steve thought himself a fool until it dawned on him that Bucky didn’t know it would be such a visceral reaction. How could he have known?

Steve sauntered to the dining room table and set the food out. Grabbing plates and silverware from the cupboard. Bucky had never sat at the same table with him in all the times they had been at the diner together. They had also never eaten at the same time. Steve tried to eat dinner at dinner time and not super late. He sometimes had pie late at night, but never dinner late at night.

“I like the book,” Bucky mumbled between bites.

“I’m glad,” Steve said surprised.

“It isn’t too far off from what happened,” Bucky said, eyes darting up to Steve’s face and back to his plate.

“Oh,” Steve said thinking this was more than he had told other people but still not believing it was an opening to talk about things with him.

“Do you want me to change the story?” Steve asked, quietly.

Bucky didn’t think he had the option to ask Steve to change his story, but now that he was given the opportunity he wasn’t sure he would want him to.

“No. I don’t know. No.” Bucky mumbled, caught off guard by the question. He wanted to have Steve change the story, but he liked that the Winter Soldier was a hero. Somehow his likeness being whole and better if not healed, made him hopeful. Bucky didn’t know if he would feel as good about the story as he did if the pain the Winter Soldier lived through was too different from his own.

Bucky finished his dinner and said goodbye to Steve. Bucky wanted to be outside, but he had done far better than he thought he would. He was proud of himself. It wasn’t often he was satisfied with of himself, but tonight as he walked into the night, he was impressed with himself.

Bucky 11:52 Just leaving now. I like the book.

Bucky shot the text off to Beca and turned off his phone. He knew she would want to talk to him about why Steve had been in the diner and what had happened. He didn’t have the strength to deal with it, so he just went to his sleeping spot and got ready for the night.

Even though Steve was happy that Bucky had stayed and even eaten with him, he was feeling a little blah. Steve had been burning the candle at both ends for too long, and he knew it. His body needed sleep, and between his desire to see Bucky every night and getting up early to work on the book he couldn’t help but feel a little bit off, it was more than just fatigued. Steve knew he was pushing himself too hard, and he was getting sick, but he just wanted to deny what was happening to him.

Steve went to the diner the next night and had dinner, waiting on Bucky to show. This time when Bucky got there, he sat at the table with Steve eating his dinner and making more small talk than ever had in the past.

Bucky felt more comfortable with Steve now, even eating with him in the diner but the third day after going to Steve’s place, Steve wasn’t at the restaurant when he went to eat. “Where’s Steve?” Bucky asked Beca tersely.

“He didn’t come in today.”

Bucky ate his dinner and left feeling sad about missing Steve. Over the next week, there was no Steve in the diner. Bucky finally got up the courage to go check on Steve on the eighth night with no Steve. Bucky went up to the second floor of Steve’s building. Steve had left the door to the second floor unlocked, which scared Bucky. Steve was frail and small and incapable of protecting himself. He shouldn't be so foolish as to leave the door unlocked this late at night. Bucky tried the door to his actual loft and panic really sank in when that door was unlocked as well.

Bucky cracked the door and yelled he was coming in.

Steve rolled over to face the door from his bed and waited for Bucky to come into view. He didn’t have the energy to even speak. He’d been sick when he went to bed, but now he was so hot and exhausted he couldn’t bring himself to even talk.

Bucky saw the lump in the bed and walked over. “You haven’t been at the diner. Why not?” Bucky knew he sounded like a dick, but he couldn’t help it, he was worried, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation long.

“Sick,” was all Steve managed to croak out before he started to cough and wheeze. Steve was struggling to sit up, and he didn’t seem to have the strength to move. Bucky wanted to go to him and help him sit up, but the thought of touching this man in his bed was enough to turn his stomach. Steve seemed to be gasping for breath, and Bucky moved on autopilot, pulled Steve to sit up on the bed, so he was leaning against the wall. Bucky knew the guy was tiny, but he was light as a child. He couldn’t weigh 90 pounds, and that was scary to Bucky.

As soon as Steve was braced on the wall, Bucky darted away to a safe distance. Steve didn’t really have the brain power to worry about what was going on or why this man was in his home.

‘Why is your house unlocked?” Bucky demanded.

“Sick. Didn’t want to risk EMS having to kick my door in.”

“You aren’t safe with your door open.” Bucky wasn’t sure why this was what he was focusing on and not the fact Steve looked near death and was worried he would need EMS.

“Happened before. Better to have the door open than have them tear your place apart trying to get in.”

Bucky really looked at Steve for the first time. He was greenish and waxy and looked like he was at death's door.

“I get sick a lot,” Steve said, launching another coughing fit. Steve tried to brace himself but he felt his rib dislocate during one violent coughing fit and when he put his hand on his side he felt himself start to tip. He didn’t want to fall over, but he didn’t have the strength to stop it, so he just tipped in slow motion.

Bucky didn’t know what to do. Steve looked like he needed a hospital, but he seemed nonplussed by the whole situation. What did Bucky know? People told him he should be in the hospital and he thought they were wrong, so why should he push his beliefs on Steve? When Steve grabbed his side and started to tip over, Bucky couldn’t take it anymore. He walked over to the bed and sat down, shoving the panic at being on the bed with another man away as he righted Steve and slipped in so he was behind Steve and holding him in place. He was sweaty and cold even with the blankets on him.

Bucky hadn’t had someone touching this much of his body since he was in Iraq. He forced those memories away as he wrapped his arms around Steve trying to give him support and warmth as he coughed.

Steve didn’t know what to make of the man climbing into bed with him and holding him. He felt like a child being held by a parent, but he couldn’t help that it felt nice to have the warmth on his back and the strong arms holding him and giving him something to brace against as he coughed.

After a while, Steve stopped coughing, and Bucky went to get up but as soon as he laid Steve back down the smaller man started to cough again. Bucky eased him back up and wrapped him in blankets. Bucky felt like he was going to die from the heat, but Steve was still shivering.

“I think you need to go to the hospital,” Bucky mumbled after a particularly bad coughing fit a few hours later. Steve had been dozing as Bucky kept watch over him.

“Probably,” was all Steve managed to get out before he started to hack again.

Bucky wriggled out from behind Steve making sure not to let him tip over as he did. Bucky thought he could carry his weight, but he didn’t know how he could get him from his apartment to the hospital. He didn’t think he could carry Steve in a fireman carry with one arm and he didn’t want to drop the smaller man. Bucky called 911 and tried to suppress the panic of strangers coming into his space and demanding to talk to him. He knew it would happen, but he didn’t see a way to get Steve to the hospital without them, so he waited, holding Steve wrapped in a blanket on his lap. Beca had been about this small when he’d left for Iraq, and she was 10. Steve was his age, almost 30. Bucky had looked the artist up on his phone.

When the ambulance got to Steve’s house, it was just as awful as Bucky thought it would be. They were loud and demanding, and they smelled like a hospital. Bucky managed to keep it together until they got Steve out, then he fell apart. Bucky shut the door behind them, crawled under the bed and cried until he fell asleep. He remembered flashes of his rescue from captivity, and it sounded and felt and smelled a lot like tonight. He’d been so weak then he couldn’t stand on his own. He could barely roll over. When the soldiers got there, he had hardly been able to mutter his serial number, so they knew he was American. Bucky wanted to see his family again, but he mostly just wanted to die. He had wanted to die for most of the time he was in that hut. They had done such horrible things to him he had longed for death. Seeing the EMS from this side just brought up too many memories for him. He wanted to run and hide but he couldn’t, he just sat there huddled under the bed and cried.

Steve was in the hospital for 11 days. His mom and Peggy came to see him. So did Tony, Pepper, and Bruce. Steve was friends with Tony and Pepper, but Bruce was new to their relationship, and Steve was stunned when he showed up and seemed genuinely worried about him. Beca had come by and told Steve it was Bucky who called the EMS. The hospital told Steve he would have died if he had come in much later than he had. He had pneumonia in both lungs and was a mess.

Steve knew he had been sick, but he didn’t really know how sick he was. He didn’t comprehend he was ill enough to have died if Bucky hadn’t gotten him to the hospital. Steve was sad and a little disappointed when Bucky didn't come see him after he came to his house to check on him, but Steve was pretty sure hospitals were not a happy place for Bucky, so he tried not to be sad about the situation.

Bucky went to the diner every night just like normal, but when there was no Steve, he got his food and left. He never ate in the restaurant or said more than a handful of words to Beca. Bucky tried to talk to her, he really did try. He just couldn’t seem to bring himself to say more than a couple of words at a time.

Bucky went by Steve’s house every evening to see if he’d returned home yet.

19 days after Bucky called the EMS to get Steve, the lights were on in his apartment when he checked on Steve. Bucky couldn’t explain why he cared so much about this man. Bucky could see Steve was attractive in the abstract, but he couldn’t really get to turned on by anyone anymore. He had endured too many years of rapes and torture to find anyone attractive in that way now. Bucky thinks it might be that Steve took the time to get him to warm up to him that makes him more open to being attracted to him than other people. Most people don’t interact with him at all. Mostly they opted for ignoring him. The people who do interact with him forced the interaction. Even Becca tries so hard not to push him, but she looks at him with those pleading eyes and asks him to stay in the apartment or to just talk to her. He can tell she tries to be kind and not force him to interact, but she forces in her own way. Her brand of force was far more upsetting than the people who just demanded he interacts with them. She gave Bucky the illusion of choice, but in reality, he would have to see her sadness and pained expression if he chose not to interact with her. Steve with his slow, methodical waves and mumbles hi for days before he even attempted to say anything more than hi. It makes Bucky feel something. He doesn’t know what it makes him feel. It doesn't anger or pity the only two emotions he seems to be able to recognize these days, but it’s something.

The VA therapist kept telling him to open up to talk to her to try and let himself have emotions. Bucky was stubborn for the first nine months he was in the hospital. He couldn’t speak at all for most of that time, let alone talk about his feelings or the things that happened to him, but he finally broke down and tried what she kept suggesting. He talked to Beca. He told her he loved her and how grateful he was she was there to help him, Bucky lost control of himself then.

He became sick almost as soon as the words left his mouth. He knew then being closed off and not having emotions was better than having them. It was better to be alone and safe than with someone and vulnerable. Even if the person he was vulnerable with was his sister. Beca cried and told him she loved him too. He could see the hope in her eyes that this was a turning point for him. He felt like shit because he knew this wasn’t the turning point she thought it was.

There was just something about this skinny little guy who never really asked anything of him but saw him as a hero even with all his faults that made Bucky want to open up. He wanted to have the skinny artist in his life. He wanted to see how the book turned out he wanted to share more meals with the man. He wanted to talk to him. Even if he only wanted to ask how he was doing that was more than he wanted to say to Beca. He would speak to her. He would force himself to talk to her to ask her how she was, to say he loved her but he had to make himself do that. With Steve, he wanted to talk to him. He wanted to know what the man was thinking and how he was feeling. It wasn’t merely knowing he should ask that had him asking, no he wanted to talk to the man about things like the weather and comics.

Bucky walked up the stairs terrified, knowing the door to the outside was still being left open even with Steve hopefully better and still weak as a kitten. Bucky knocked on the door trying not to let the panic get to him.

Steve didn’t know who would be at his door so late. His mother hadn’t been thrilled he was going home yet. She always worried about him and wanted him to stay with her, but Steve wanted to go back to his life and his home. He loved his mom, but he wanted to be a grown up and not have his mother worrying over him all the time. Steve was shocked when Bucky was standing at his door looking nervous as he waited for Steve to open the door.

It was everything Bucky could do to stay and wait for Steve to open the door. He wanted to run.he last thing he wanted was to be trapped in Steve’s apartment with the memories crashing in on him. But he could hear Steve moving around and coming to the door slowly and the thought of making Steve get up as sick as he was, was more than he wanted to do to the man he tentatively called a friend.

“How are you feeling?” Bucky spat, barely able to speak with how uncomfortable he was.

“I feel better.”

Bucky nodded and went to turn around and leave. He knew he needed to get out of here. The memories of being here and the interactions with the paramedics were overwhelming him as he tried to focus on Steve. Bucky finally really looked at Steve and saw he was barefoot and dressed for bed. Bucky looked at the watch on his wrist and saw it was after midnight and lights on or not Steve was recovering and he had just gotten him up in the middle of the night.

“Sorry,” Bucky mumbled.

“For what?” Steve asked genuinely unsure what the man was apologizing about.

“It’s late.”

“Oh yeah, it’s fine. My days and nights are all mixed up, not that they were ever really all that straight. I never slept well even as a baby. My mom gave up on bedtime by the time I was four. She put me to bed when she went to bed. I wouldn’t sleep, and it was a constant fight every time she tried to get me to go to sleep like a normal child,” Steve explained.

Bucky stood looking around the apartment trying not to look at the corner he had hidden in for hours after Steve was taken to the hospital. He wanted to leave, but Steve seemed so tired and weak. “I was just checking on you. I’ll let you go back to sleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep, I was just reading, or trying to read,” Steve said walking back to the couch and picking up his book.

Bucky stood rocking back and forth, trying to decide if he should sit or stand or go. He finally walked to the chair opposite Steve and sat down. He didn’t know why he wasn’t being logical and leaving. There was just something about Steve’s quiet, calm, steady presence he loved.

When Bucky sat down, Steve tried to think of what to do, but he could tell from all the time he spent with Bucky at the diner that he was all talked out and wouldn’t handle Steve trying to talk to him more. Steve grabbed the TV remote and flipped it on and put on a nature show and curled up on his side and started watching. He preferred reading to watching TV, but he wasn’t sure how Bucky would handle something else, so he opted for a show that was mostly images of animals, and cuddled up on the couch under a blanket.

Bucky had mixed feelings when Steve flipped on the TV. He wanted to talk to Steve, but he was about ready to bolt, and he guessed Steve could tell. That was yet another reason he liked Steve so much, he seemed to be able to tell when Bucky was done talking. Even Beca couldn't seem to see it as far in advance as Steve could. Beca could tell before he melted down but she would always talk to him a few too many times. Steve never did. He always knew when to stop talking and just enjoy the fact Bucky wasn’t running away.

Steve fell asleep on the couch which he’d expected when he put on something that wasn’t likely to capture his attention. What shocked him was that when he woke up around seven, Bucky was still sitting on the couch. At some point, he’d apparently taken the remote from the end table because he was watching Leverage while Steve had been asleep. Steve was shocked Bucky hadn’t left, but then he thought about how upset Bucky had been when the door was unlocked all those days ago. Steve’s door couldn’t be locked from the outside without a key and Steve thought that must be the reason Bucky was still there with him because he seemed very edgy about being there. Steve thought about what the best course of action was. He was incredibly attached to this man. Steve was pretty sure Bucky was in a place to date, and let him know he was into him seemed an unfair burden to put on Bucky.

Steve felt like a sap, but he wanted this man any way he could have him. Sure Steve wanted the whole kit and caboodle, but he would be satisfied for just spending time with the man. He knew that was pathetic, but he was often that way. This was back to the way he was with Peggy, knowing he couldn’t have her the way he wanted her but so desperate to have her in his life he was willing to have her the way she was willing to have him. Things had worked out with Peg, but Steve didn’t think lightning would strike twice and he would be so lucky with Bucky. She liked her sex partners as just that and her friends as friends. Keeping the two separate seemed to work for her. Steve wanted to have his lovers as friends and vice versa, but he would settle and not force his agenda on Bucky. It wasn’t like he really knew Bucky, but he didn't think he would get so lucky as to mess things up with him and get a second chance to keep him in his life, so he needed to play this right.

“You want some coffee or do you have somewhere to be?” Steve asked nonchalantly as he walked to the kitchen letting Bucky know he was welcome to stay or go.

Bucky was torn. Every part of him wanted to be outside in a place where he could escape if he needed to, but Steve was barely able to make it to the kitchen on his own, it wasn’t like he was a threat. Bucky wondered if that was why he was so comfortable around Steve. It wasn’t like Beca was a threat but he still always needed to escape. Bucky also wondered if the lack of rooms in Steve’s place made him more comfortable as well. There was nowhere for someone to hide. He could be sure it was just Steve and him in the apartment, and it was much more open and not such a closed-in box. Being in a room was always hard for Bucky. His therapy appointments went far better after he finally asked the therapist to have his meetings in the group room. It was far easier to be in a room and talk if the place didn’t make him feel trapped.

“Coffee,” Bucky mumbled, walking into the kitchen and grabbing the coffee pot Steve was filling up. “Where is the coffee?” Bucky asked after he had gotten the water set up. As angry as Steve was trying to look about Bucky taking over, he looked relieved to be able to sit down and not have to be on his feet. Bucky wondered why he was here alone when he so clearly needed help taking care of himself. “Why are you here by yourself?” Bucky barked. He heard how harsh it sounded as soon as he said it but it was already out.

“I wanted to be home in my own bed,” Steve mumbled.

“Sorry. You just seem like you could use some help,” Bucky said dejectedly.

“I know, but I hate being sick and having my mom have to take care of me. She’s a nurse and takes care of people for a living. I hate when she has to do those things for me. I am a grown up. She shouldn't have to help me to the bathroom or cook and clean for me.”

Now Bucky really felt like an ass. He understood all too well what it was like to be a burden to your family. It might have been better if his parents were still alive and could share in the burden of caring for him but it all just fell on Beca, and that was terribly unfair to her. He could totally understand now why Steve was here, apparently not really ready to be here alone if it meant being less of a burden to his mom. Bucky knew from the little they talked before that Steve was an only child of a widow woman. Bucky knew Steve was incredibly sickly as a kid. He was sickly now, but he had been far worse as a kid and even though Bucky hadn’t been anything but a happy, healthy child he understood being a burden to your only family.

“I get it. I hate being a burden to Beca.”

Steve knew what Bucky had just told him to cost him dearly. Bucky was not one to share something so personal. Steve saw it for what it was, a peace offering to make up for being so harsh in his judgment of Steve being alone when he clearly wasn’t ready.

They sat and sipped their coffee in companionable silence. Steve knew better than to fill the uncomfortable silence with Bucky. Too much talk was a no, no with Bucky but it was still hard to keep his mouth shut when the silence went on a little too long. Steve made a mental note to have his sketchbook close so he could occupy himself when Bucky wasn’t in the mood to talk but wanted to be around Steve.

It dawned on Steve that he was being weird by thinking of ways to make spending time with Bucky less awkward when he had no idea if this was a one-time thing or not. Bucky seemed to be calming down now that he had something to do with himself. Getting up and moving around seemed to have calmed him down. Steve made a mental note of that as well.

After an hour or so Steve got up and grabbed his work stuff and started working on a new set of panels for his book.

“I should go,” Bucky said as Steve sat down with his work stuff.

“You don’t have to. It’s nice having someone here.” Steve said seeing how awkward Bucky had become, but hoping he would stay.

Bucky settled in and pulled his phone out. It was far nicer than he would have bought for himself, but Beca had just given it to him and told him it was nonreturnable, so he kept it. It was an Apple 7 something. He didn’t really know, but he could look things up on it and play games. He had resisted it when he first got it, but he was surprised how much it relaxed him to be able to retreat into his electronics when he was nervous or forced to be somewhere he didn't want to be.

He skimmed over his Tumblr. He had a Facebook, but he liked Tumblr better. His Facebook had posts and articles that upset him, but he had gotten his Tumblr to the point that it was mostly pictures of animals and happy things. He would scroll through it when he needed something to do with himself. The stuff he posted on Tumblr were always happy, and he had quite a few followers who had anxiety or were other vets who found his page calming with all his stupid cat gifs and baby pandas.

After a few hours, Bucky started getting antsy again. Steve thought he would use Bucky’s nervous energy to his advantage. He hated to use Bucky, but he wasn’t up to cooking even if there were half a dozen casseroles in his freezer he could just heat up. “I’m ordering food from the diner can you pick it up?” Steve asked. Steve really wanted Greek food from the place two blocks over, but he didn’t think Bucky would be able to handle a new place during the day. He knew he could Ubereats either place if Bucky didn’t feel up to picking it up. “I’ll buy if you fly.” Steve offered. Steve didn’t really know where Bucky got his money from. He seemed to have money for the diner every night, but Steve didn’t think he had extra money in his budget for things like eating out when he wasn’t planning on it.

Bucky didn’t really want to go into the diner when it would be crowded, but the food would be ready when he got there, and all he would have to do is pick it up and come straight back. He was hungry, and he worried Steve might not eat if he didn’t go pick it up for him. Steve didn’t look like he was up to even taking a cab to go get food. “Okay,” Bucky mumbled gulping at the thought of having to go in when there would be people.

Bucky all but ran to the diner. He knew the cook time for almost everything on the menu and knew the food would be ready in about 12 minutes, and it was a 10-minute walk there. Bucky rushed in and said Steve’s name pointing at the bags of food on the counter. He wanted out of there, but he could last long enough to do this for Steve. He could feel his guts churning as he waited for the waiter to grab his bag. He didn’t even say thanks as he rushed out the door and all but ran back to the relative safety of Steve’s place.

Steve was surprised when Bucky was back so fast. He seemed out of breath, and dropped the bags on the table and darted to the sink to gulp down some water. Steve didn’t know if it was stress or physical exertion that left him so out of breath.

Bucky seemed to calm down, and they ate without incident. He left at around 8:00 when Steve started yawning. Steve knew he overexerted himself but he didn’t want Bucky to leave, and he didn’t know how to ask Bucky to come back again.

“Do you want to come by tomorrow and check out the book again. I am almost done. It will be going to the printer soon.”

Bucky just nodded.

“11:00 tomorrow morning I’ll order from the Greek place for lunch.” Steve was slightly worried that if Bucky panicked again,, he wouldn’t be able to leave the apartment to give Bucky time and space to recover, but there was nothing to be done about it in his current state. The deadline for the book had already been pushed back twice because he was sick. He had a great lawyer, and the fact that the publishing company was owned by Stark Industries didn’t hurt. Tony nor Pepper had direct control over the company, but a call from the owner of the company that owns your company tends to make anything possible. Steve used to hate when Tony did things like that,, but he couldn’t help but be happy when Tony took care of him even still. Tony owned the company before Steve signed the deal with them. He almost went with a competitor when he found out Stark Industries owned the company, but Tony threatened to never speak to him if he signed a deal to make another company money with his art. Tony even threw his paying for his art degree in his face saying Steve owed him.

Steve raged at the comment and Tony was saying it to be an ass. It was true, and the publishing company made tons of money off of his book, and it would have been shitty to give all that money to Tony’s competition. It still hurt Steve’s feelings to have Tony throw his degree in his face like that.

When Bucky showed up the next day, he was antsy. Steve put him to work making coffee again. Steve didn’t think Bucky would like being asked to do things like that when Steve was better, but it apparently made him calmer when he was given a task and not just sitting and thinking.

Bucky knew Steve was giving him tasks because it seemed to calm him down to be busy, Bucky hated it, but he couldn’t lie, it did make him calmer when he was useful. Bucky wished he could work. He thought he would feel less worthless if he worked, but he wasn’t stupid, he could barely speak to his sister let alone a stranger, and he couldn’t sit in an office for more than a minute or two before he would start to panic. He thought about outside work like construction or physical labor, but loud noises scared him so he didn’t know he could do that either. It wasn’t like he had any skills. Boy, the recruiter lied to him. No jobs were waiting for him when he got out of the Army. He was far too fucked up from his time in Iraq to get a job, and even his friends who weren’t nearly as damaged as him didn’t have a lot of job offers. You can’t really put killing people or watching your buddies die on a resume.

The guys who worked in an office might be better off, but none of the men in his unit did fuck-all after the Army other than security or being mercs back in Iraq or Afghanistan. And even if he wasn’t so fucked up in the head, he was missing an arm so he couldn’t even do those jobs. He was useless. He figured it was a good thing he got his medical discharge. It was just one more way in which he was a failure.

After a while, Steve asked if Bucky wanted to look over the book. Bucky nodded and tried not to look too frightened. He wanted to know what was in the book but it had been so hard to see the things that were so close to the truth right there for people all over the world to see. He knew it wasn’t what really happened. Steve wrote a comic book, it wasn’t like he was going to have people gang raping his hero, but the electric chair thing was pretty close to what they did to him when he wouldn’t comply. He hated being shocked, and they found out pretty quickly that was the fastest way to get him to comply. It was their go-to move almost immediately. Bucky had been shocked by a taser once when he was younger, and it hadn’t been fun, but that was nothing compared to having a taser shoved into your taint or on your cock. Bucky tried to steer his thoughts away from the past and onto looking at the book, but it was sheer force of will keeping him from having a panic attack.

Steve wondered if he should say he needed a nap and just set the computer up and let Bucky look at the book while he tried to sleep or more likely pretend to sleep. Steve decided it would be best to give Bucky some space while he read the book. “I’m going to lay down. I’m feeling a little worn down.”

Bucky knew Steve wasn’t exactly lying to him but not exactly being super truthful either. He could see Steve was exhausted but he wasn’t stupid and he knew Steve was doing his best to give him space. Bucky let Steve keep up his subterfuge.

“Thanks,” Bucky mumbled as he sat down in front of the computer.

Steve retreated to his bed and laid down. He didn’t really intend to sleep, but when he got horizontal, he realized he hadn’t really been lying about being exhausted, and soon he was asleep.

Bucky thought Steve was going to watch him while he looked over the book but within a page or two, he could hear soft snores coming from the bed. Maybe Bucky had misread the situation, or perhaps it had been both Steve trying to give him space and exhaustion.

The second read through was far easier than the first. Bucky could actually look at the art as he read. He knew Steve was an amazing artist, but he could really appreciate the art of the work this time. Even though the chair was hard to see he knew it was coming and he was able to skip over the page and not have to dwell on the image. When he finished the book, he was shocked. He had not only enjoyed the book, but he wasn’t as upset as he thought he would be. It was hard, but it wasn’t as horrendous as he'd anticipated.

When Steve woke up, it was dark outside, and Bucky was gone. There was a note saying he liked the book and Steve could publish it with his blessing. The bottom of the note said Steve needed to get a door that could be locked from the outside without a key and that he had taken the key off of Steve’s key ring and locked the door when he left and left the key under the mat.

Steve couldn’t help but smile at the sweetness of Buckyworrying about him sleeping with the door unlocked. Steve ate something and went back to bed. He was better, that was for sure, but he was still far from well.

Over the next week, Bucky stopped by a few times, mostly at meal times with food from the diner. It was clear to Steve that was the only place Bucky ever went even when it wasn’t the middle of the night. Bucky would show up, eat, and make sure Steve didn’t need anything and then leave. Steve never asked where he went, but he wondered.

After Steve had been home for almost two weeks, he was up to going to the diner for dinner. He told Bucky that he was going to try and go to the restaurant for dinner around 7:00. Steve didn’t make it an outright invitation, he simply stated where he would be and when. He was going out to see how Bucky would handle the new information.

Steve took a cab there and ate his dinner alone in the busy restaurant but was incredibly surprised when Bucky darted across the street when he stepped out the door from his dinner.

“How are you feeling?” Bucky asked watching as the Uber pulled up in front of the diner.

“Better. Do you want to come by tomorrow around 3:00? I have an appointment with my publisher in the morning.” Steve asked, opening the car door.

Over the next few weeks, things went back to the way they had been before Steve got sick. Bucky would sit with him in the diner, but they talked more now than before. Bucky hadn’t been dropping by his place unannounced anymore, and Steve felt a pang of sadness about the loss. Steve tried not to put too much pressure on Bucky. Steve wanted Bucky around as much as he could have him but he could tell pushing Bucky to be around more would overwhelm him and push him farther away. He didn’t even know if Bucky was gay or bi let alone if he wanted to be more than friends with Steve, and asking didn’t seem like a good idea, so Steve kept the status quo.

Steve was getting ready for the book launch. He wanted to ask Bucky to go with him but he knew there would be too many people and it would be too much for Bucky. Bucky seemed to be okay with Steve both in the diner and in his home. Bucky looked to do best one on one. Beca tried to sit with them a few times at the diner, and three seemed to be a bit much for him. Bucky would allow it but was clear he was less comfortable when there were more people around. Steve felt like a dick for making a choice for him, but he didn’t want to make Bucky feel like he was pressured to come and be put on display for the book launch.

Steve brought it up the night before the party. He hadn’t planned to bring it up at all, but he wasn’t going to be in the diner the next night, and he knew Bucky would be expecting him there. The few times Steve didn’t go to the restaurant Bucky would text him or stop by to check on him. Steve wanted to make that more important than it was but he liked that this man seemed to be invested in him is not only okay but being at the diner with him for dinner. Even the few times Steve hadn’t felt well enough to stay late enough to meet Bucky he would text him and tell him he was calling it an early night.

“Tomorrow is the party for the new book. I won’t be here. It will probably run late. I didn't think you would want to go and have to deal with all the people fawning over my new inspiration for the book.” Steve hated to sound so petulant but he wanted Bucky to come, and it was hard not to feel like he couldn’t ask or that by asking he was putting too much pressure on his friend. It was stupid. Steve knew Bucky couldn’t go and that asking him to go was too big of an ask, but it didn’t stop him from being hurt when Bucky answered the way he knew he would.

Bucky just about spits his drink out in his haste to say he didn't want to go to the party. Bucky knew anything with the word party in it would be too many people, but he saw the sad crestfallen look on Steve’s face. Bucky couldn’t understand why Steve looked so disappointed about him not going, but he looked sad. It wasn’t 20 minutes before Steve was saying he was tired and had a big day tomorrow and needed to go home. It was far earlier than he usually left, but Bucky didn't miss the sadness as Steve gathered his things.

Steve felt like a big baby as he walked home. He didn’t think he would be so sad about Bucky not going. He hadn’t even asked until now because he knew the answer but it still hurt his feelings. Steve knew Bucky would have been uncomfortable around all those people and worse than just a typical party, everyone there would have read the book and recognized Bucky for the inspiration for the character. Steve hated himself for being bummed out. It seemed so childish and stupid to be upset but he was, and no matter how rational he was being he couldn’t get over how he felt.

Over the next couple of weeks, Steve tried not to be hurt by Bucky missing his party. But everywhere Steve looked he seemed to see the evidence of Bucky’s absence. The pictures Tony posted to social media and the tweets that were sent out about the party. All his friends were curious about the new man Steve chose to write a whole comic about. Steve told his friends Bucky wasn’t feeling well and it wasn’t really a lie.

Steve knew that Bucky had issues. He wanted to pretend they weren’t that big a deal. But when he thought about Bucky missing his party, Steve couldn’t help but think it would be that way forever. Dating Bucky held an inevitable future. Steve thought about the Christmas parties at Tony’s house and the concerts at the bar he liked so much. He thought about the fact he would probably never get to have Bucky with him when Tony got drunk and danced on the bar. He would probably never have Bucky with him when Tony talked everyone into going skiing even though only Tasha and Thor were any good at it. The whole thing made Steve sad.

Bucky felt like shit for not going to Steve’s party. He saw the excitement in Steve’s eyes when he asked Bucky to go. It was clear he wanted Bucky to come with him, and it was painfully clear to see the crestfallen look on Steve’s face when he said he couldn’t go. Bucky wanted to say yes; he did. He even thought about saying yes, but he knew he would panic the moment he got there. He knew he would freak and run and Steve would feel like he needed to take care of Bucky and that meant Steve missing his own party. Bucky didn’t want to disappoint Steve, but it would be far worse to make him miss his own party because he was a fucking mess. Bucky thought about telling Steve he wanted to go and why he didn’t go, but he didn’t want to make things worse for Steve. A few days after the party Steve seemed to return to normal.

Bucky couldn’t help but feel like a teenager again. It was like he was back in high school. He had a thing for Steve, that much was sure. He hadn’t been so sure at first, but the more they talked, the more he knew he was attracted to Steve, and that terrified him. He didn’t want to like Steve. Sure, Steve was cute and funny and smart and loved spending time with him, but he couldn’t date Steve. Why would Steve want someone like him? He was broken and fucked up. He was missing an arm and crazy as a shithouse rat. Steve deserved better. He deserved to have someone who could be a real partner, not someone who would freak out if Steve touched him. Hell Bucky couldn’t even manage to go to a new restaurant or even going to the restaurant he could manage at a normal dinner time.

The more time Bucky spent with Steve, the more comfortable, he became around him. Bucky would swing by Steve’s apartment and barely even flinch when the door would shut behind him. He enjoyed the afternoons spent in Steve’s open loft watching Steve work while he read or watched TV. Sometimes he would read while Steve puttered around the kitchen. It was an easy balance with them. Bucky still had moments of panic, but his overall fear level was better. He could almost pretend to be a normal guy hanging out with his boyfriend if he didn’t focus on his shortcomings.

Steve liked how things were going with Bucky over the past few months. Bucky had become a regular fixture in his loft. Steve never knew anyone who was as quiet as Bucky. The man could go days not saying a single word, but the times Bucky did talk to him were becoming more conversation and less random pleasantries.

Even after Bucky started to spend most of his days hanging around Steve’s apartment they hadn’t really talked much. Bucky would talk for a few minutes, and then he would go quiet and become very still or worse he would be unable to stay still for more than 30 seconds. Steve knew when he got ansty it wouldn’t be long before Bucky would bolt. Steve still saw the flashes of pure terror in Bucky’s eyes now and again, but Bucky hadn’t gotten so scared he was ill or so scared he left the loft without speaking to Steve in several weeks.

Steve was sure he was falling in love with this stoic man. Steve liked to spend time with him and based on the fact that Bucky actually spent time with him and didn't just split all the time he liked spending time with Steve. Steve wanted to bring up dating, but he wasn’t sure how Bucky would react. So Steve just left it alone. Steve wanted to say something so badly but he just couldn’t. As much as he wanted to date Bucky, to kiss him, to pull him into his bed. He thought Bucky would panic and he enjoyed what they had even if it wasn’t what he wanted. Having what he had with Bucky was better than nothing, so he kept his mouth shut.

Bucky could swear Steve wanted to kiss him. Bucky hadn’t noticed before, but he was sure this wasn’t the first time Steve looked at him this way. Bucky felt like a fool. He’d never been what one would call a man whore before he left for Basic training but he wasn’t a virgin. He’d been around the block a few times, but that was all before he spent five years in that living hell. If he was honest with himself, he wanted to kiss Steve. He thought he could handle a kiss. He wanted to hold Steve. Bucky knew he could handle, holding Steve if he was the one doing the holding but he didn’t know how to tell Steve what the rules would have to be if he wanted to do those things with him. Bucky knew Steve was a caring and giving person and he knew Steve would never be satisfied being the one cared about and never showing Bucky how he felt. Bucky just didn’t want to admit what had happened to him.

Bucky wasn’t stupid, he knew his sister had told Steve something about his past. Steve was a caring man, but he never approached Bucky from behind, and even in the loft with its lack of walls Steve never went out of sight. Even when Steve used the bathroom, he would tell Bucky where he was going and announce himself when he was finished. Bucky could see the thought and care Steve put into his every interaction with him. It was sweet in a heartbreaking way. Bucky wanted to scream and rage and tell Steve he wasn’t broken or fragile, but at the end of the day, he was both broken and vulnerable. He could no more handle Steve behaving the way he would with anyone else than he could rope the moon.

 

Bucky had gotten to the point where he was around enough to have met Clint. Steve claimed he was the least animated of his friends and if this was the most subdued of his friends Bucky knew he couldn’t handle the others. Clint had swung by when Bucky was at the loft one day to grab something, but it was a casual and time-limited stop. Bucky was grateful to Steve for making sure to prep Clint, so he didn’t linger. If Bucky really thought he was in the best mood, he had been in for quite a while when Clint showed up. He was more ready to handle a stranger that day than in the years since he had gotten back. It was hard to know not only was his sister bending over backward to take care of him but Steve was as well.

Steve had wanted to introduce Bucky to his friends for weeks before he got the chance. Steve thought long and hard about who would be the best person to meet first. He settled on Clint pretty quickly. Natasha was calmer and definitely better at being the calm, quiet one, but she was also pretty intimidating all on her own. Clint was a more prominent personality, but he was the kindest person Steve knew. With his own past, Steve knew Clint was sensitive enough to understand and not try and push Bucky into anything he wasn’t ready for. Steve set up meets for the two of them 5 times before he finally gave Clint the go-ahead to come by. Bucky was in a great mood and calm enough that Steve thought the meeting would go well. Bucky had been very nervous and hadn’t really said much beyond hi, a sure sign he was stressed but he hadn’t bolted, and he hadn’t gotten sick.

Steve had seen Bucky’s stomach would rebel when he was pushed past his stress threshold. Steve made the mistake of sneaking up on Bucky once. He hadn’t even meant to sneak up on him he had merely been going to the bathroom and leaned over the back of the couch to see what Bucky was reading. Bucky had yelped and bolted. He had made it to the bathroom before he got sick but just barely. Steve felt awful. He never meant to upset Bucky. He wanted to see what he was reading, but clearly, that wasn’t okay. After Bucky hid in the bathroom for an hour and a half and clearly lost everything, he had eaten the past day, and a half Bucky came out, and the sheepish look on his face was shocking. Steve was the one who felt like shit for upsetting Bucky, but it was clear Bucky was the one who felt like he was in the wrong. Steve wanted to cry.

It wasn’t that Steve thought Bucky was broken or damaged it was only he didn’t want to be the one causing Bucky stress, and it seemed like he was. After that Steve went to announcing himself when he moved around the apartment especially if Bucky was paying attention to something other than Steve. Steve wanted to be happy that Bucky could do other things when he was alone with him. When they had first started spending time together, Bucky never let his guard down. Steve was happy Bucky could relax enough to be startled, but he still felt like shit for scaring him.

It was mid-November when Steve finally got up the courage to ask Bucky on a proper date. Steve knew from Beca that Bucky was bi. He had dated a couple of girls before he went to basic training but he had mostly dated men. Steve asked Beca about his preference one evening before Bucky got to the diner.

“Hey, Beca what is your brother’s gender preference when it comes to dating partners? Sometimes he looks at me, and I swear he looks like he wants to kiss me but sometimes he looks like touching me would make him run screaming from the room.” Steve asked as calmly as he could.

“He is bi,” Beca stated trying not to lead Steve on but not wanting to be forced to tell her brothers secrets. “I think you should leave it alone Steve.” She said trying to keep her emotions in check. She knew Steve was curious and somewhat nosey. He would want to know why and the last thing she wanted to do was tell her brothers only friend something that would make him act in any way different towards him. Beca knew him well enough to know Steve wouldn’t shun him but she also knew he was a big softy and he would say something and let slip that he knew what had happened to him in Iraq.

Steve was shocked by Beca telling him to leave it alone. Beca pushed them together from the very being. She wanted Steve to get to know her brother. She had been urging them to be friends since the first time they had spoken. Steve couldn't understand why this was something she was balking at. Beca was very gay-friendly. She had been around Steve enough for him to know she wasn’t pretending to be okay with gay and bi people, she really was with everyone no matter their dating gender preferences. She had met Tony and Bruce and Pepper, and she asked a million questions, but she was fine with them. Why was she acting so strange about Steve being interested in her brother it didn’t make any sense.

“Why?” Steve asked his voice growing harsh.

“Because he isn’t going to be able to handle dating you and it will cost him the only other person in his life besides me,” Beca said, her voice calm and defeated.

Steve thought from the moment she said to leave it alone it was about him not being good enough, but as she spoke, he could see the fear in her eyes that Bucky could lose out on the only somewhat regular part of his life if Steve pushed for a relationship. Steve wanted to be an enhancement to Bucky not a negative. Steve was so quick to jump to the conclusion that it was about him and his worthiness he hadn’t even thought about what it would mean to Bucky if things ended and ended badly between them.

Bucky didn’t have a big group of people in his life who cared about him and who would be there for him if things went sideways. Bucky, for the most part, had Steve and Beca and from what Steve could tell Bucky did his best never to need anything from Beca. Bucky was very cautious about what he asked of Beca and what burden he put on her. Bucky never talked about it, but when he had an appointment at the VA and needed someone to go with him, he asked Steve and not her even though she told him multiple times she would be happy to take him. Steve understood his desire not to be a burden and also realized what it was like to need help no matter how much you wanted to be able to do something on your own.

Steve respected Bucky for the way he treated his sister. It was much the same way Steve handled his mom. Steve would ask a friend or take an Uber before he would ask his mom. She had enough on her plate to add worrying about him into the list of things she was trying to take care of in her life. Steve understood the hurt it caused Beca when Bucky asked Steve before he asked her, but he also understood why.

Bucky showed up at the diner, and things were awkward with Beca and Steve. They usually got on like a house on fire. Talking and joking. Steve and Beca always sat on the same side when they were talking, and it was getting close to the time they knew Bucky would get there. They always made sure he never had to sit by either of them or ask one of them to move. It was one of the many things that both warmed his heart and made him want to cry in frustration at the same time.

Beca took his order and darted back to the kitchen. Bucky was perplexed by their strange behavior, but he ate his food like nothing was going on. The odd behavior between Steve and Beca continued for over a week before things went back to normal. Bucky was curious, but he didn’t want to push it and ask what was going on with them. He was afraid he wouldn’t like the answer he got if he asked. The two of them were so kind to each other he knew the only thing that could, a drive a wedge between them was him, and he didn’t want to face the reality of hurting them even if he didn’t know what he had done.

Steve waited two weeks after his conversation with Beca before he got up the courage to ask Bucky out on a date. They had been hanging out at his loft all day, Bucky reading and Steve idly sketching. “Do you want to go get dinner?” Steve asked, trying to keep things casual so if Bucky turned him down, it wouldn’t mean things would get awkward between them.

Bucky was caught off guard by the question. They had dinner a few times a week, but this felt different. This felt like a date. He couldn’t fathom why Steve would want to go on a date with someone as broken as him. Bucky wanted to be offended by Steve’s question, he didn’t need a pity date. Bucky hated being pitied. He hated the way people looked at him when he was on the street, but Steve never looked at him like that. He never looked at him like an obligation. Steve had always seemed to want Bucky around not just put up with him.

“We get dinner all the time. What are you playing at Steve?” Bucky hissed.

“Like a date,” Steve said staring at his shoes as he spoke. “Beca said you were bi. I thought you might go on a date with me.”

Bucky laughed, but there was no joy in his voice as he did. “What you playing at Stevie? Why would you want to date someone like me? I’m ruined. I can’t bear to sleep inside a building. I can’t bear to let you touch me. I won’t ever be able to have sex with you.” Bucky yelled. “I am a fucking wreck,” Bucky said this part coming out far more defeated than even he thought it would.

“I like you. I think you are something special.” Steve said, eyes pleading for Bucky to understand what he was trying to say. One of Steve’s favorite quotes about love is “The wonderful thing about falling in love is you learn everything about that person and so quickly. And if it’s true love, then you start to see yourself through their eyes. And it brings out the best in you. It’s almost like you are falling in love with yourself.” Steve felt like that when he was around Bucky, but he wasn’t sure Bucky felt the same way about him.

Bucky was shocked by what Steve had said. No one had found him special. Ever. He was beautiful before the war. He was charming and charismatic. He could talk his way into anything, but no one had ever found him special or worth more than a fuck. Sure he’d dated people, but they liked having a smart, charming man who looked like he used to look. It was never about who he was as a person. Bucky didn’t know what to do with someone saying they wanted him for who he was. He never had that when he was whole and functioning. Why would Steve want him now? Bucky knew guys from his therapy group who had people who loved them before they were fucked up, but he hadn’t seen anyone find someone after they got all fucked up.

Bucky felt like a dope for the rest of the afternoon. He was so shocked that Steve wanted to go on a date with him. He knew he was smiling, but honestly, he was just spacy. His head was spinning as he sat in the living room for an hour or so. Bucky kept glancing over at Steve and was shocked to see Steve was all smiles as well as they watched some Netflix show. When Buck left he didn’t know where he was going, it just seemed like he had been at Steve’s long enough he should leave so Steve could get back to his life, but as he left he thought he saw Steve slump a little bit and he would swear Steve seemed sad he was going. But Bucky didn’t know how to stay when he had already said he needed to go. He was so lost in his own thoughts. He started walking to Beca’s apartment on autopilot.

Steve was pretty sure Bucky was in a haze after he said yes to the date but he didn’t seem distressed just kind of lost in his own mind, so Steve left it alone. He figured Bucky would let him know if he wanted to cancel. Bucky couldn’t seem to follow a conversation, and he made his excuse for going home mid-sentence, but he hadn’t panicked, at least not too much so Steve would count it as a win and let Bucky go. Steve thought it could have gone worse, so he was taking the win. He was happy as he went to bed.

When Friday night rolled around Bucky did his best not to freak out. He wanted to go on his date, but he didn’t know how it was going to go. They had texted and decided to go to a bistro with a patio open all year. Bucky felt terrible for making Steve eat outside in winter, but Steve had suggested it, so Bucky didn’t fight it too much. He knew it would more manageable than trying to eat inside. He wanted to just go to their diner, but that wasn’t really a date, and he would have to see Beca, and that would just be awkward, so he agreed to the bistro.

Steve felt like the Michelin Man as he walked up to the bistro. He had put on long underwear and his clothes and a jacket and brought a blanket in his backpack. He felt stupid, but he didn’t want to be miserable or get sick from sitting out in the cold.

Bucky felt like shit as he watched Steve walk up. He looked ridiculous and cold already. Bucky wanted to cancel, but they were already sitting down.

The date went better than either of them thought it would. They managed to talk, and it was just like it was at Steve’s house. Bucky was happy, it was light and easy. Bucky ate his food in a hurry, and as soon as he was done with his food, he suggested they go to Steve’s place and have coffee. He didn’t register the coffee move was a silly ploy to get into someone's house if you were trying to have sex. All Bucky could think about was how red Steve’s fingers were and how cold he looked.

On the way home Bucky grabbed Steve’s hand. Bucky didn’t think about the fear or the fact that he was initiating contact with a living person, he just thought about how red Steve’s fingers had been at dinner. Bucky knew he would have to get over his fear of being inside if he was going to date, Steve.

Bucky hadn’t really thought about if he wanted to date Steve before Steve asked him out. He never dreamed a guy like Steve would want him. Steve was successful and kind and attractive. He was everything Bucky wasn’t. He was everything Bucky had been before the Army. Bucky had earned himself a full ride to NYU before he enlisted. He had been two weeks into his first semester in college when those planes hit the world trade center. He had gone to the recruiters’ office three days later and was at basic before Christmas. Looking back he hadn’t really thought about it long enough, but he just had to do something, so that’s what he did.

Steve tried to keep from beaming at Bucky as he grabbed his hand on the way back to his place. Bucky had been to his apartment tons of times, but this was different. This was a date. Steve tried not to be too excited, but he was delighted with how the date had gone.

They had a couple of cups of coffee and Bucky left. Steve hated to see him go but he was so happy with how the date had gone.

Bucky was happy as he walked back to Beca’s apartment. He used his key to let himself in and went to the bedroom that was his and laid down. Bucky didn’t even realize he was inside and in a bed until he woke up terrified. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept in a bed.

Beca didn’t know what to do when she woke up, and Bucky was in the apartment. He had slept in the bed, and that was rare enough, but he was still here in the morning making food and puttering around the apartment. Beca just acted like Bucky was here every day and enjoyed this rare time with her brother.

Over the next month, Steve and Bucky went on more dates. They went to Central Park a couple of times and went to the zoo. Bucky did better outside, but they went to coffee shops and restaurants and even ate inside. Steve was having fun getting to know Bucky better. He was a lot of fun. Steve enjoyed going to do things outside. Steve was very much a homebody. He pretty much worked or read or watched TV or went to the diner. But Bucky pushed him to try new things.

Bucky was shocked by how much fun he was having with Steve. They hadn’t touched more than hand-holding, and Steve seemed to understand without being told that he wasn’t allowed to touch Bucky without permission but Steve didn't seem to mind, he just enjoyed the time they had together. Steve was just easy to be with even when they were on a date. Bucky didn’t know why he felt like he needed to be better now that he and Steve were dating but he felt like he needed to be more functional. Bucky wasn’t just some random guy who hung out with Steve, now they were dating. People would judge Steve by the person he was dating, and Bucky didn’t want to be the reason Steve got ridiculed.

Bucky stayed on and off with Beca. He made a conscious choice now to stay there, and to sleep in the bed.

Bucky liked when Steve talked at him and didn’t really want an answer. He seemed to genuinely enjoy having the company and Bucky liked not having to respond more than yes or no. Steve wished Bucky would talk to him more, but he was happy to have the company. It was hard to explain, but he liked the time they spent together. The more time they spent together, the more Steve could see Bucky wasn’t what you would call a healthy man. Steve could see the fear in his eyes when he was startled, and he could see the way he would shut down and not be able to even speak for hours.

Bucky knew he was going to have to talk to Steve about what happened to him overseas, but he just couldn’t bring himself to have the conversation. Steve was so caring and sweet. He was such a good man, and Steve was continually telling him how much he liked him. Bucky knew Steve wouldn't outright tell him to fuck off. The real fear was that Steve would continue to be kind to him. Steve would continue to be careful of him and continue to spend time with Bucky doing things that Steve undoubtedly didn’t enjoy just because they were the easiest for Bucky to handle. Bucky felt like if he opened himself up to Steve that Steve wouldn't end things just because he was a caring person. Bucky didn’t think Steve would pity him. He thought it would be more than Steve wouldn’t want to end things because he did care about Bucky. If Bucky kept his distance, Steve would eventually get frustrated and give up and fade away. Bucky even tried to pull back from Steve, but Steve kept up his kind caring attitude. Steve would text him and check in like he was the most important person in the world.

Bucky decided he had two choices he could tell Steve he wanted to stop talking to him or they could try to be a real couple. Bucky was beyond terrified, but he liked Steve, and he wanted to date Steve. He wanted to kiss Steve and more than kiss Steve, but he was afraid. It wasn’t like he had a great deal of experience with actually dating someone before he went to Iraq and that was almost a decade ago.

Steve had invited Bucky over to his place for movie night like he did almost every Thursday when Bucky finally made his decision. Bucky was going to take Steve out on a real date. He knew he should probably ask Steve first before he just made the decision but if he asked Steve beforehand and it was too much for him changing his mind would just show Steve how broken he was so he would spring it on Steve. It was a jerk move, but it was all he could do.

Steve was puttering around the kitchen working on his Carmel popcorn when Bucky knocked on the door. Steve was shocked when he opened the door to see a very primped and quaffed Bucky. Over the months they had been hanging out Bucky had gotten better about showering more often, but he rarely looked so clean and primed. Steve would swear he had product in his hair. Now Steve felt like a bum in his pajams already, but he liked to be comfortable for movie night.

Steve looked Shocked when he opened the door. It was clear he wasn't expecting Bucky to look like he was ready to go on a date. Bucky felt even more like shit for springing this on Steve when he noticed Steve was already in his pajams. Bucky did the only thing he could think of before he lost his nerve he kissed Steve on the lips. It would have been chaste for anyone over the age of 12 but it was more than Bucky had done in almost a decade and despite the roiling in his gut, he was excited. He thought it would be far more disconcerting than it was. He was more excited than panicked, and that was a massive win in his book.

“Get dressed we are going out,” Bucky said letting Steve go and pushing him towards his closet to get dressed.

“Where are we going?” Steve asked, still in shock over the kiss and the way Bucky was dressed.

“To a Chinese place Downtown,” Bucky said around a mouthful of caramel corn, grinning at Steve.

Steve got dressed in record time and did something with his hair. He needed a shower to really do much with it, but Bucky was tapping his foot like an impatient child and Steve didn’t think he would stand for such things, so he put way too much product in his hair and walked to the door.

A place downtown meant a subway ride or a cab, but Bucky had picked the place, so Steve let him lead. Steve was shocked when he got downstairs, and Bucky hailed a taxi as if he did it every day. Steve had never seen Bucky hail a cab, and the couple of times they had taken them Bucky had been on edge the whole time, but Steve just let Bucky lead--this was his show.

Bucky felt drunk with glee over the way the night was going. Steve looked shocked and pleased when Bucky opened the door to the cab for him. Bucky was a bit tense on the ride, but he focused on Steve and the way he was smiling and waited for the trip to be over. When they got to Minn’s Bucky helped Steve out of the cab as a proper gentleman should. Bucky felt proud of himself as they walked into Minn’s. Bucky had eaten here as a child with his family. It was where the Barnes went on special occasions. His mother had loved it, and they would go all the way from Brooklyn to downtown to eat there whenever something extraordinary happened. Bucky thought his first real date was something special.

Bucky did his best not to let his mind wander to unpleasant things during dinner, and every time his mind would get loud, Steve would carry the conversation and drag Bucky back to the land of the living. It was a great night, and Bucky didn’t want it to end. When he was a child, and they'd come here, they would often go to this place a couple of blocks away and get ice cream after. Bucky wanted to get ice cream before they went home.

“Let's get ice cream. There’s a place about three blocks away. We can walk. Are you okay walking that far?” Bucky asked.

Steve had been in shock all night. Bucky was not only taking him on a real date, but he was doing really well. Steve hated himself for thinking Bucky couldn’t handle doing things like this. Maybe Steve was selling him short for thinking he would have to give up so much to date him. Bucky wasn’t like other people, but Steve could see now that he was more capable than Steve saw him. Steve was excited as they walked down the streets. He was so focused on Bucky he hadn’t noticed someone walking behind him. In his defense, this was Manhattan, someone was always behind you, but he didn’t see anything wrong until a hand was grabbing his hood from behind and jerking him to the ground.

Bucky was so focused on how well things were going he didn’t sense someone behind him until Steve was on his ass and someone was aiming a gun at him.

“Give me your money fag!”

For whatever reason this just killed Steve. You are holding a gun on us and our sexual orientation matters in what way Steve thought somewhat manically, but before he had a chance to say anything or hand over his wallet Bucky had kicked the mugger in the knee and hit his wrist, the bones making a satisfying crunch as the mugger yelped and dropped his gun. Bucky grabbed the gun and held it on the mugger even though the guy was laying on the ground whimpering and crying. This guy was not cut out for a life of crime Steve thought as Bucky told him to call 911.

The whole police situation took forever in Bucky’s mind. He just wanted to get Steve home and make sure he was okay. Steve kept saying he was fine, but Bucky could see the way he was limping as he walked and how he couldn't seem to get comfortable in the hard waiting room chairs at the police station. It was hours before they were allowed to leave. The whole cab ride back to Steve’s loft Bucky kept replaying how he had reacted to the mugger. He hadn’t thought, he’d just sprung to action and taken care of Steve. He’d protected Steve.

Bucky knew he was getting better. He had a reason to work on things in therapy he never had before, but he also knew he wasn’t healed. After tonight not only had he taken Steve out and actually enjoyed himself, he’d handled the mugger and cops without a significant issue. He felt like he might actually be able to function like a real person one day. And maybe even one day soon.

Steve wanted to be resentful of Bucky’s help up the stairs but he was hurting, and he just wanted to be in his house and out of his dirty jeans and maybe even put some ice on his hip where it was no doubt bruised to shit.

Bucky wanted to kiss Steve--and more. He was so excited and pleased with himself he thought he might be able to get through sex without panicking, but he wasn’t sure. Bucky knew he would have to give Steve some rules, but he wanted to try. He wanted to lay Steve on the bed and do all sorts of thing to him. Bucky was losing his nerve by the second. He knew it would have to be now or never.

“I am going to tell you something, and I want you not to say a word until I finish. Can you do that?” Bucky asked as Steve eased down on the couch.

“Yeah.”

“I was a POW in Iraq, and they did things to me while I was there. They did sexual things to me,” Bucky said in a rush trying to get through this as fast as possible and without freaking out. “They hurt me really badly, and I have issues with my anus and rectum.”

Being clinical was the way the doctors talked, and that was the only reference he had for talking about this with anyone so he went with the words he knew he could get out with the least issue. “I don’t think I can ever be penetrated sexually. I don’t think I can do that. Ever. And I don’t think I can, you know, blow you either. I just don't think I can. But there are other things we can do. I want to do other things with you. But I have to be in charge and take the lead. I don’t think I could handle you trying to be in charge.”

Steve sat dumbfounded as Bucky spoke. He knew whatever had happened while he was a POW was awful, but he couldn't have imagined this. But Steve wanted to be sexual with Bucky, and he was willing to be with him in whatever way Bucky wanted to be with him.

“Okay,” Steve said.

Bucky didn’t know what to do next, but he wanted to kiss Steve and not some chases school girl kiss but a real kiss, so that’s what he did. He all but leaped up, grabbed Steve pulling him to standing and leaned in to kiss him. Steve wasn’t at all prepared and headbutted him as they tried to kiss but the second try was far better. Steve let Bucky lead. He parted his mouth and let Bucky decide how deep they kissed. Steve usually liked to be playful and bite or nibble during a kiss, but he held back and let Bucky be in charge. Bucky was a slightly shy kisser. Steve thought it was fun. He was enthusiastic but not super pushy when he kissed.

Bucky ran his hand down Steve’s back and cupped his ass using his stronger frame to lift Steve slightly to compensate for the height difference. Steve yelped in surprise but gripped harder on Bucky’s shoulder pulling him deeper into the kiss. Steve liked being manhandled, Bucky tucked that away for later. They had never talked about sexual preferences before, so Bucky didn’t know Steve enjoyed being the submissive in sex. But he was no fool, and every time he used his strength or weight to force Steve to move this way or that Steve would claw at his back harder and grind against him.

Bucky decided to really trip Steve out and lifted him onto his shoulder like a bag of grain. He carried him to the bed dropping him unceremoniously with a nice satisfying bounce as he landed in a heap. Steve tried to sit up, and Bucky just pushed him down on the bed and unbuttoned his jeans grabbing both pant legs at once and yanking them off. Steve had been fucked by larger guys before, but Bucky seemed to be enjoying showing off how much bigger and stronger he was than Steve. Steve wanted to be offended, but he was too turned on to really care much.

Bucky yanked Steve’s sweatshirt and shirt off in one hard pull forcing Steve to be moved around like a rag doll. Bucky knew it was his turn to strip but the thought of being naked in front of Steve was bringing up memories he would rather not face.

Bucky felt himself slipping out of the here and now and into that hut in the desert. He wondered if Steve would balk if he fucked him with his clothes on while Steve was utterly naked. Steve seemed to like Bucky taking charge, and there was something compelling about being naked, and the other person fully clothed. Bucky hoped Steve would find it hot and decided to go with it. When he pulled his pants down far enough to get at his cock but apparently not taking them off Steve gasped and slid down the bed so he could get his mouth around Bucky’s cock. Bucky noted that Steve clearly wasn’t upset about uneven power dynamics as Steve took him balls deep in one single go.

“What a little slut,” Bucky moaned before he realized he said anything. Steve mumbled something that sounded like yes sir and sucked harder on his cock. Bucky hadn’t had sex in an embarrassingly long time, and Steve was what one would call very talented with his mouth.

Steve could taste precum and feel Bucky pushing on his shoulders and hear him saying something about him being the best cocksucker in the world about 20 seconds before shooting his load down Steve’s throat. Steve swallowed like the greedy cock slut he was before he grabbed Bucky’s hand and pulled him onto the bed with him. Steve wanted to come. Hell, his cock was achingly hard, but he wanted to enjoy this incoherent fucked out Bucky while it lasted. Bucky was never really malleable was relaxed but post orgasm he couldn’t stand let alone think and Steve liked him this way. There would be other times when Steve would get to come but tonight was about Bucky and Steve was going to enjoy this moment with the man he loved.


End file.
